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A THRILLING NARRATIVE 



SUFFERINGS OF UNION REFUGEES, 



MASSACRE OF THE MARTYRS Of LIBERTY 



WESTERN LOUISIANA 



TOGETHER WITH A 



BEIEF SKETCH OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL STATUS OF 

LOUISIANA, AS; TO HER UNFITNESS FOR 

ADMISSION INTO THE UNION. 



LETTERS TO THE GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA AND NOTED SECESSIONISTS 
IN THAT STATE, 



Letter to President Johnson on Reconstruction. 



By Captain D. E. HAYNES ; 
Of the Louisiana Scouts. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

McGILL & WITHEROW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS. 
1866. 



A THRILLING NARRATIVE 



OF THE 



SUFFERINGS OF UNION REFUGEES, 



AND THE 



MASSACRE OF THE MARTYRS OF LIBERTY 



WESTERN LOUISIANA: 



TOGETHER WITH A 

BRIEF SKETCH OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL STATUS OF 

LOUISIANA, AS TO ITER UNFITNESS FOR 

ADMISSION INTO THE UNION. 



LETTERS TO THE GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA AND NOTED SECESSIONISTS 
IN THAT STATE, 



AND A 



Letter to President Johnson on Reconstruction. 



By Captain D. E. HAYNES, 
Of the Louisiana Scouts. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

McGILL h WITHEUOW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS, 

1866. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, by Captain D. E. IIaynes, in tho Clerk's Offico of tho 
Supreme Court of tho District of Columbia, in tho year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and sixty-six. 



\ 



V 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following narrative is that of a plain man telling his story in his own 
way ; a simple record of his own sufferings and of other Union men in 
Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas, under the " Reign of Terror," during 
the rebellion. Ho lays no claim to scholarship, and he throws himself upon 
the indulgence of his readers for the errors in these pages, resulting from a 
defect of education. His sole object in this publication is to contribute to the 
history of the great rebellion some facts illustrative of its interior character, 
and of the disposition of the people who originated, sustained, and controlled 
it. He was an eye-witness in most of the transactions which he relates. For 
those sufferings he asks no sympathy. He feels sufficiently rewarded in the 
triumphs of the Government, and in the assured perpetuation of the Union. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CHAPTER I 



"I will deliver the plain unvarnished tale ; 
Nothing shall I extenuate, or aught set down in malice." 

When General Banks whipped Dick Taylor on the Teche, 
in the spring of 1863, the Confederates broke, helter-skelter, 
in every direction ; Taylor's army was demoralized. Had 
Banks followed up his success in that direction, he might 
have marched his army, with scarcely any opposition, to the 
Rio Grande ; such was the terror struck into the Confeder- 
ates west of the Mississippi, that they could offer no serious 
opposition to the advance of the Federal army. 

I was at that time living in Harden county, Texas. Spaiths 5 
battalion was ordered from Houston, Texas, to Louisiana, to 
reinforce Taylor. This battalion was chiefly composed of 
Texians from the southeastern counties. Many of the sol- 
diers deserted for their homes, intending to remain with 
their families at all hazards. Most of them were induced to 
enlist, at the breaking out of the war, by promises made to 
them by the planters, that if they would volunteer, their 
families should be supported. But, no sooner were the poor 
devils deluded from their homes, (afterwards to avoid being 
conscripted, as well as the prospect of their families being 
supported,) than the planters forgot their generous and patri- 
otic promise, and, instead of assisting their families, extor- 
tioned on the soldiers' wives from one to three dollars a 
bushel for corn. Thus those cowardly vampires were fatten- 
ing on the fat of the land, and enriching themselves on the 
misfortunes of their country and miseries of the poor. As 
a Confederate soldier's pay would not suppry his family with 
corn bread, the soldiers' wives had to work in the fields like 
slaves, with their sucking babes laid on a quilt, under a shade 
in the field, whilst the mother plied her hoe to tend a patch 
of corn or sweet potatoes to keep them from starving. The 
piece of homespun, which they spun and wove, had often to 
be sold to the planter, to purchase a little corn for bread to 
keep themselves and children from suffering. 



Knowing me to be an uncompromising Union man the de- 
serters and conscripts sent for me, informing me of a meeting 
which they had appointed for all the Union men for the purpose 
of giving expression to their sentiments regarding the present 
state of affairs. The place of the meeting was a pond in the 
pine woods. "We met, about fifty in number. I was appointed 
as one of the committee to draft resolutions expressive of the 
sense of the meeting, which was, briefly, their belief in the 
injustice of the rebellion and the incompetency of the Confede- 
racy to gain its independence; that the rebellion was un- 
called for by any act of the United States Congress, and much 
less by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and calling on the 
volunteers from the counties of Tyler and Harden to return 
home, pledging themselves to suffer no conscript officer to 
take away any conscript or deserter ; and, if any conscript or 
deserter should be spirited away, to fly to his rescue, and repel 
force with force, if necessary. Such is the substance of the 
resolutions which were unanimously adopted. I, with a 
young man by the name of Phelps, were appointed as dele- 
gates to canvass Harden county, and call a meeting of the 
citizens at the Court House. Whilst there, a traitor by the 
name of Joe Adams, a one-handed man, who came to the 
meeting at the pond, and promised to render every assistance 
to the cause which he could, betrayed us. AVTiilst I was ad- 
dressing the meeting at Harding, my son came and informed 
me that I was betrayed; that General Van Vleek, a renegade 
Yankee from New York, of the militia, had raised a company 
in my rear to capture Phelps and me. Our trial was over, our 

n fence passed; we were to be hung- to the first tree which 
could be made to answer so noble a purpose. The evening 
before the meeting atJIarden Court House, the rebels of that 
county met at the appraisement of a dead man's property, and 
affirmed that if they could get ten men at the Court House 
they would hang me ; but, such were the feelings of the people, 
as a general thingin that section of the country, in regard to the 
cause 1 had in hand, that they could not raise ten men in 
that county to molest me. Phelps and myself, seeing we 
were likely to be cut off from home, and being unarmed, took 
to the woods, and gathered round us such men as we knew 
we could depend upon in any emergency. We had several 
secret meetings in the swamps, and it was resolved that 
Phelps and myself should go to Alexandria to prevail, if pos- 
sible, upon the Federal officers to give us a few squadrons of 
cavalry, and make a sudden dash into the interior, and bring 
out our friends. But, alas, we were doomed to a sad disap- 



p ointment ; for, before we got quite out of Texas, we learned, 
to our great mortification, that Banks had evacuated Alex- 
andria, and before we got within sixty miles of Alexandria, 
we could distinctly hear the Federal cannon battering at 
Port Hudson. We traveled all the way by night on foot, 
being compelled to leave our horses, to avoid detection ; we 
traveled, in this way, one hundred miles in three nights; this 
was about the 20th of May, 1863. I would here remark, by 
the by, that the secesh had offered five hundred dollars 
reward for my capture. 

We could neither advance nor retreat ; we were between 
two fires; should we strive to get through the rebel lines, we 
would have to travel between two hundred and two hundred 
and fifty miles, and at every few miles would meet with some 
Confederate encampment ; to return, we should have to re- 
main in the swamps during the war, and if captured death 
was our penalty. A man by the name of Lazarus Goolsby, 
•a professor of religion, by the by, said he could see Haynes 
tied to a sapling and a pile of pine knots made round him, 
to which he would set fire, and freely do so, and turn his 
back and walk off laughing. 

We came to a friend's house by the name of Henry Bar- 
rington, an old friend of mine from Georgia, and stayed with 
him three weeks. I had leisure to converse with many of 
my old acquaintances whom I met, having lived in Rapides 
parish about three years before, and, having learned the 
political sentiments of the people in that section of Louisiana, 
I made up my mind to remain somewhere in the neighbor- 
hood, and take advantage of circumstances as they -might 
transpire. I therefore bought a place, with the crop, cattle, 
and hogs, from a man by the name of Presswood. He was 
a great~secessionist, and the Union men and him could not 
agree, so I sold him my place in Texas, stock and all. When 
I came to the Calcasieu I gave out that I was a good rebel. 
The Yellow-jacket battalion, under Major Fournett, was 
camped at Hineston, and the very day I came to the settle- 
ment they killed Jim Parker on the public road, and shot 
perhaps twenty shots at his cousin Ben. Parker was the 
first " martyr of liberty " in this section of Louisiana. It 
was but a few days afterwards that they killed Bob Flyn, 
another Union man. They robbed and plundered the Union 
men of everything they could lay their hands on : horses, 
mules, oxen and cattle, wagons and harness, bed-clothes, 
plow-gear, horse bells, even the women's shoes and little 
trinkets of jewelry. The milch cows being too poor to eat, 



they caught the calves and yearlings, bored holes in their 
noses, and put a plow line through the incision thus made, 
and made them follow as docile as oxen. Major Fournett 
and his Yellow-jackets were as expert at plundering as Ali 
Baba and the fort} 7 thieves. 

I would here remark, in justification of the officers in com- 
mand of the battalion, and especially of old Col. Fournett, 
who resigned in . disgust at the orders issued to him by Gen. 
Mouton, which were " to burn all the houses of the Union 
men; to shoot every deserter they found with a gun; and 
any man they found out of his house after dark, to shoot 
or hang him within the following twenty-four hours." 

It is a fact worthy of note that the first robberies committed 
in this section of Louisiana, were committed by the rebels, 
which led to retaliation by some of the Union men, who, 
in return, robbed some of the rebels. 

My brother-in-law brought me my family in August fol- 
lowing, and the day following he was captured as a con- 
script, by a squad of scouts from General Walker's division 
under a Captain Davis, who came into the settlement hunt- 
ing for conscripts. They camped at night on the Calcasieu 
river, at Strather's bridge. I prepared me some corn and 
a horse and cart to go to the mill, about twelve miles dis- 
tant, but my real object was to let the conscripts know 
the cavalry was out. I saw about a dozen, and as soon 
as I told them the iicavs they scattered in every direction 
to give the alarm. When I returned home, Captain Davis 
had my brother-in-law a prisoner, and several old men, whose 
eons were hid in the woods to avoid being conscripted. I 
went in search of Captain Davis; he was at the old man Weth- 
erford's, house ; Wctherford was a prisoner also ; he was an 
old man sixty-six years of age, his head as white as snow ; 
his offence was, his son was in the woods. I called Captain 
Davis out into the horse lot; told him I saw a dozen of "Jay- 
hawkers" about twelve miles south of there, that a runner 
passed the day before, and crossed the Calcasieu river, about 
twelve miles south, and spread the news. I told the captain 
that the " Jayhawkers" talked of fighting him; that I told 
them not to attempt it; "for," said I, " if you kill one of his 
men, he will bring the whole of Walker's division on you and 
kill every one of you lie meets, and burn your houses;" that 
they finally consented not to fight him. Captain Davis swore 
that if thej- killed one of his men he would bring force enough 
to cut down every tree in the swamp and kill the last one ot 
them. He said he knew who carried the news: that it was 



9 

young Scarbrock, whom he hunted out of his bed the night 
before. I found he was in Nicaragua with Walker, and I being 
there too, turned the conversation in that direction ; recited a 
poem I wrote on the siege of Granada, and before I con- 
versed with him am hour he released my brother-in-law, 
and, further, gave me a certificate that he knew me to be a 
good citizen of the Southern Confederacy. He also gave me 
a written permission to harbor and protect Mrs. Mary 
Nichols, the widow of Simon Nichols, (one of the rebels 
killed Nichols a few weeks before,) for they had interdicted 
any person from harboring her under penalty of burning 
their dwelling, &c. Had Captain Davis known the mission 
I was on, instead of the ostensible one of going to mill, he 
would have put a rope around my neck instead of giving 
me a certificate of protection. 

Nothing of any consequence took place in the settlement 
except the robbing of a wagon belonging to some persons 
going to Texas. I did not know who did it, but sus- 
pected Dr. Dudley and a Yankee deserter, who called him- 
self Norton; but I learned afterwards his name was Green. 
The rebel cavalry killed him in the prairies in 18G4, but 
not before he killed two of them. I told the neighbors 
if this plundering was not put a stop to that evil would 
come of it; that the innocent would suffer for the sins of 
the wicked ; and so, truly, it turned out. About the last of 
August Bob Martin, a quadroon Indian from Lana Cocoa 
prairie, Rapides parish, Louisiana, got a commission to raise 
a company of conscript hunters; and he did hunt them with 
a mischief. So cruel and bloody was this wretch in his 
efforts to capture conscripts, murdering them indiscrimi- 
nately whenever he found them, that he obtained the un- 
enviable soubriquet of "Bloody Bob " Martin. It was on 
account of this inhuman wretch's bloody deeds that a foolish 
and wicked project was set on foot by some inconsiderate 
scapegraces — Levi Boyd, Wesley Lovin and Bryant Presley. 
Martin and his company went home, and left at Martin's 
house several of their horses. These rascals induced several 
men and boys to go with them and kill "Bloody Bob" at 
his house. They raised a company of some dozen or so, 
and when they got to Martin's house, instead of attacking 
him, they took some horses out of his lot. Many of those 
inveigled into this trap, finding out the real object of the 
expedition, returned home, and would have nothing to do 
with it, "Bloody Bob," next morning, finding the horses 
missing, started on their track, and finding the course they 



10 

went, mustered his company, and compelled all he met to 
go with him. Bill Smart, and his brothers Dr. Smart and 
Reese Smart, with a mulatto by the name of Jim Groves for 
his first lieutenant, and Big George "VV. Smith for his second 
lieutenant, also joined him. (Smith had, a few days ago, been 
appointed constable by Governor Wells, Oct., 1865.) Smart 
and his company came to the house of an old man named 
Walley; he found in his pasture a horse which they recog- 
nized as having been stolen from "Bloody Bob's" lot. 
"Walley 's son-in-law, Lovin, put the horse in the pasture. They 
found another man, a conscript, in Walley's house ; him they 
shot dead, and Walley they took about half a mile from the 
house, and hung the old man from a tree till he was dead. 
There was not an lionester or more inoffensive man in the 
country than this poor man. The next house they came to 
they shot two more men ; one being shot in the bowels, cried 
out with pain. Reese Smart jumped from his horse and pulled 
out his bowie-knife, cursed him for a damned Tory, and stab- 
bed the already dying man in several places till he was literally 
butchered in the most cruel and barbarous manner. Next 
day they caught two men on the road, one by the name of 
Clark and the other Elijah Connelly. Clark being a conscript, 
and upon being questioned if he would tell the truth they 
would not hurt him, he told them he was one who was de- 
coyed to "Bloody Bob's;" that he never went to the 
house ; had nothing to do with stealing the horses; told the 
names of several who were along. His confession did not 
avail him; they broke their promise, and when about to 
shoot him he begged for heaven's sake to let him go and 
see his children, (six in number.) But no; no respite was 
given him. Connelly would have made his escape but for 
his cousin. His name was Bass. Bass was the only man 
who saw him pass a mound in the woods. He rode after 
him and brought him back. Connelly was on foot. This 
wretch told — and Connelly did not deny it — that he passed 
himself on Connelly as a Union man. Connelly thought he 
was all right; he being his cousin had no idea that he 
would lie to him, much less betray him. Bass told that 
about three weeks before Connelly told him he went from 
Rapides parish to Natchitoches parish to let the conscripts 
know the cavalry were out conscript-hunting. This Con- 
nelly did not deny, and they shot him dead, and left him 
and Clark to be devoured by the vultures. The same party 
visited Governor Wells' summer-seat, and took or destroyed 
everything that they could find, and finally burned the 



11 

whole establishment. They robbed and plundered the 
Union men everywhere they went, and under the ostensible 
pretense of suppressing robbery and jayhawking, before the 
close of the expedition they robbed and out-jay hawked the 
worst jayhawkers in the country. And whilst I am treating 
of the stealing — if it can be called stealing to steal from 
such a pack of ruffians as "Bloody Bob " and his company — 
not one of the scamps who got up the expedition was cap- 
tured. 

I would here say, in connection with the foregoing narra- 
tive, that the Union men, to show that they did not coun- 
tenance any lawless deeds, raised a company of their own 
and went to scour the country of jayhawkers. But when 
they saw the lawlessness of the very men who were de- 
nouncing robbers, murdering and robbing indiscriminately, 
they withdrew, and as soon as they dispersed "Bloody 
Bob" and his conscript hunters were at their heels. 

Captain Todd, another conscript hunter, was at the same 
time operating between the Calcasieu river and Opelousas. 
He surrendered himself to Banks' army at ^Natchitoches in 
April, 1864, and went to New Orleans. He is now a land 
office agent at Opelousas, and was, I understand, appointed 
through the influence of Governor "Wells. This is strange 
indeed ; but he is not the only one in the list of exceptions to 
the governor's favors. That Governor "Wells should recom- 
mend such a man as Todd as a proper recipient of Govern- 
ment favor could be scarcely believed, were it not for the fact 
that, while reorganizing the State of Louisiana, he (the 
governor) appointed to the highest offices in the parishes men 
whom he knew to be notorious rebels, while it was a rare in- 
stance that he ever appointed a good Union man to office. 



CHAPTER II. 



" Then, as a terror to the following age, 
Like Badjazet, I'll bind him in a cage." 

I was left in comparative quietness till Presswoocl, when 
he got to Texas, wrote back to one of his friends, Jake 
Gunter, the ruffian who, after taking the oath of allegiance 



12 

at Alexandria in 1864, went back and joined the rebels, 
and, from his local knowledge of the swamps, was one of 
the leading conscript hnntcrs up to the time of the surrender. 
It was he who shot the notorious Dr. Dudley. Gunter told 
the rebels I had had to leave Texas ; that I was outlawed there 
for raising a company of Union men, five hundred dollars 
reward being offered for my apprehension. I was now sus- 
pected strongly of being a Union man, and I had to have 
recourse to Captain Davis' certificate, and other papers which 
I brought from Texas, to keep me from being captured. But 
the cat leaped out of the wallet at last, for a renegade Yankee 
by the name of Jones, from TVoodville, Tyler county, Texas, 
being a captain in the Confederate army, on his way through 
the settlement reported me to Major Pat. Keary's battalion, 
which was then camped at Ilineston, eight miles from my 
house. They sent a squadron of cavalry to capture me, 
with several of the neighboring rebels for guides. I was, 
with my two little sons, in the horse lot, attending to some 
fattening hogs, when the cavalry charged upon the house. 
I could have easily escaped had I known their object was to 
take me a prisoner. I went to the house and met them in 
the yard, when a sergeant asked me if my name was Haynes. 
I told him yes. He told me I was wanted in Ilineston and 
had to go. They also took my oldest son, though I showed 
them the record of his age ; he would not be eighteen years 
till the coming January. I did not know what charge they 
had against me till one of them, a sergeant, a Mason, told 
me I was arrested for being a Union man in Texas. 

At this time IV. t. Keary, a planter, and his two brothers 
were moving their negroes and stock to Texas. His train 
covered over a mile of the road. lie stoyjped at Ilineston 
several days for his teams to come up. lie had a pack of 
bloodhounds along, trained on purpose for running negroes. 
If it had not been for them I should h?ive made my escape from 
Hineston. I sent for my wife. She came, and went to Mrs. 
Keary and begged her to intercede with her husband, the 
major, to release me. Nothing could be done in my behalf. 
Mrs. Keary told her that she did her best, but that the 
orders were from General Dick Taylor to kill every man that 
did not come in. 

The Yankee renegade, Captain Jones, came with Keaiy to 
the guardhouse and identified me; telling Keary in my hear- 
ing that he knew me well in Texas; that I was a shrewd 
fellow, &c. Finding all hopes of escape cut off on account 
of the bloodhounds, and three other prisoners being brought 



13 

in, Keary ordered a double guard to be placed round the 
guardhouse. Knowing Keary when I lived in Rapides 
parish, about three years before, that he was a Mason, and 
also Jones to be one, and finding all entreaties vain, I ex- 
pected nothing but to be shot ; and so I learned afterwards 
was their intention. As Keary and Jones left the guard- 
house I called out, "Major!" Both turned round. I was 
standing in the door of the guardhouse, and gave them the 
masonic sign of distress. Hot long afterwards an orderly 
came and asked me my Christian name in full, which I gave 
him. I then believed I was safe, and that, instead of killing 
me, I would be sent to headquarters ; which was the case. 
The three prisoners who were brought in the night before 
were, on the following morning, tied with their hands behind 
their backs with rawhide strings, their spurs and knives 
taken from them, and sent under guard to " Bloocty Bob" 
Martin, and, as the sergeant who had command of the guard 
told me afterwards at Manny, Sabine parish, were shot to 
death. 

I was captured on the last Saturday in October, 1863, and 
about the middle of the following week the battalion took 
up the line of march for Shrevesport, to which place they 
were ordered to carry me to General Kirb}' Smith, under a 
charge of high treason. The guard who had me in charge 
had orders to tie me on my horse. One of them led my 
horse by the bridle, riding by my side. My son they turned 
loose when they left Hineston, no charges being preferred 
against him and he being under conscript age: He was, 
however, recaptured and sent to " Bloody Bob" Martin to 
Lana Cocoa prairie, and every means but torture used to 
scare him, to get him to join them, without avail. They 
finally turned him loose, and he had to walk home — about 
fifty miles. 

The first night we camped at a free negro's by the name 
of Carrol Jones. I was, after supper, tied, and a double 
guard placed over me. Keary's train camped there too. 
He had along all his stock, cattle, and sheep, about twenty 
wagons, about a dozen carriages, and three hundred negroes, 
three or four of whom were handcuffed and tied together 
with a log-chain, and a negro guard over them with old 
muskets and bayonets. Here I should have tried to escape 
were it _not for the dogs which were along. We finally 
reached "Manny, after a march of three or four days — which 
could be easily accomplished in two days ; but Keary's prop- 
erty had to be guarded, lest the " Jayhawkers," as they called 



14 

all the Union men, might pounce upon him and capture his 
negroes and concubines. 

When we arrived at Manny I was put into the jail, and in 
the jail was an iron cage seven feet by five ; and in that cage 
I was thrust, in company with a Creole Frenchman from 
Avoyles parish and a negro. The officer of the guard was a 
nephew to Kcary, and a greater brute I have never come 
across. I asked him to take the negro out of the cage the 
following morning. He told me he would not. I sent word 
to the captain in command that the cage was too small to 
hold three men, that one was a negro, and that, if he had no 
respect for me, to have some respect for his color, and have 
the negro taken out of the cage ; which request he politely 
granted. I should give his name here if I could recollect it. 
The name of the lieutenant of the guard, Keary's nephew, 
is Patrick Loftus. 

I will here, by the way, state a conversation I had with 
Keary's nephew, Lieutenant Loftus. When he opened the 
cage to put me into it I asked him why he was putting me 
into such a place, and with what crime I was charged to 
merit such treatment as to put me in a cage, like a wild 
beast, in company with a filthy runaway negro. He answered 
he had orders to put me in close confinement. I asked him 
with what offence I was charged. He told me high treason. 
I denied having ever committed any ; that I owed no alle- 
giance to the Confederacy; that I was an adopted citizen, 
and had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States 
Government; that I was a Union man, and should never 
den} 7 it; that I could not commit any political act which 
could be considered, justly, more than that of a belligerent, 
and consequently I should not be charged with anything 
more, and should be held only as a prisoner of war; 
that I could not be considered a spy, having lived in the 
Southern States twenty-five years before secession ; that all 
that could be said against me was that I denounced the 
conscript act, and the exemption in that act of all per- 
sons owning twenty negroes or five hundred head of cattle 
from military duty in the Confederate army. He answered 
that, seeing from my conversation I was a man of edu- 
cation, he was astonished at my making use of such lan- 
guage ; that he knew of several men being shot for speak- 
ing against the exemption in the conscript act. Then 
said I : " What are you fighting for ?" He answered, " Lib- 
erty.'' " Liberty!" says I; "to hell with such liberty where 
a man is shot for criticising on an act of congress; I don't 



15 

want such liberty." I would here remark that Maj or Keary's 
father and mother were Irish born, and his nephew, the 
aforesaid Lieutenant Loftus, is an Irishman. I have seen it 
verified in many instances, especially during the brief reign 
of Knownothingism, that the worst enemy an Irishman had 
was an Irishman's son. It is so even in the animal kingdom, 
for the worst enemy a wolf has is his bastard son, the wolf- 
dog. 

We stayed in Manny seven days, waiting for Keary's caval- 
cade to pass us on its way to Texas. The battalion then took 
up its line of march to Shrevesport. They had five pris- 
oners along of their own men. One was a sergeant by the 
name of Lee, from the parish of Avoyles, who, should he be 
alive and see this narrative, can vouch for its accuracy. I was 
ordered by my Irish lieutenant friend to dismount and let Lee 
ride. I felt unwell, and being otherwise afflicted, I did not 
feel able to walk. He cried out in a rage, " Don't you tell 
me you won't do anything!" I had to dismount; but in a 
short time I got upon my horse behind Lee, and while I rode 
behind him we concocted our plans of escape, resolving not 
to go to Shrevesport if we saw any possible chance of escap- 
ing. I told him that many of the company were good Union 
men, and had told me if at any time they were placed over 
me as guards by night to run off into the bushes ; that they 
would fire off" their guns, but I need not be afraid of getting 
hurt. The first night after leaving Manny we camped at an 
abandoned plantation late in the evening. The weather was 
very dry, and water scarce. The prisoners were put in an 
old smoke-house. Some of the men were very hungry, and 
after preparing their supper I induced the orderlies of three 
companies to get me supper. I had more than, enough, 
which I prudently divided with two of the guard, one of which 
tied my horse to the back of the old smoke-house and the 
other got him some corn. We now set our wits to work to 
plan for our escape, the men being very busy preparing 
supper; some hauling corn and others cutting up a couple of 
beeves before the smoke-house door and dividing it to the 
different messes. The battalion was composed principally of 
backwoods Americans, Creoles, Frenchmen, Spaniards, half- 
breed Indians, &c. ; so they kept up a jargon, " every nation 
in his own tongue." While the soldiers were busy in dis- 
secting the beef, we were as busy in digging a hole with my 
knife under the logs. There was a sentry sitting at the 
door, and eight more of the guard lay down before the door. 
While Lee was digging I lay with my eyes open, watching, but 



16 

feigning to be asleep. I snored away with all my might. The 
sentry got to nodding about the time Lee finished digging. 
He got out of the aperture with much trouble and noise, and 
took the knife with him to cut loose a horse to ride. I, 
being a larger bodied man than Lee, was held bound by the 
log, the hole he dug being most too small to admit of my 
escape. I had no knife to make it larger, and every minute 
was an hour to me ; so I made one bold push, and in doing 
so I got through, but with my breast bone broken. I led my 
horse to a clump of trees in the edge of the field and near the 
fence, where Lee was to go out and wait for me. I did not 
see him. I whistled for him three or four times, but he did 
not answer., nor have I seen him since. This was between 
ten and eleven o'clock at night of the 3d of November, 1863. 
I had neither bridle nor saddle; I used a rope line for a 
bridle, and two blankets for a saddle. I took a circuit round 
the camp; the moon was past the first quarter, but it turned 
cloudy, and sometimes I could not see the moon nor starp. 
I struck for a southeast course to avoid the town of Manny, 
because I knew a squadron of the battalion remained there 
to pick up any stragglers who might be inclined to drop back. 
I kept the woods and by-roads, crossed several plantations, 
until next morning, when I struck a road which was much 
traveled. It being cloudy I could not see the sun, and did 
not know where the road led to. I tied my horse to graze 
and watched the road; saw carriages and horsemen travel both 
ways, but I was no wiser than before of my exact locality. 
I finally resolved to go to the house, get my horse fed, and 
make inquiries. I saw a white boy in the yard, about seven- 
teen or eighteen years of age, and my first question was, to 
inquire how far it was to Manny ; he answered eighteen miles. 
This gave me encouragement ; I asked him what road this 
was. lie said it was the road from Natchitoches to Shreves- 
port, and that it was twenty-five miles to Natchitoches. I felt 
comparatively safe, as I was out of the t^ack which the 
remainder of the battalion would have to take from Manny 
to Shrcvesport. His father came to the gate ; I told him I 
wanted breakfast, and my horse fed ; told him I was lost; that 
a squad of the " Black French" took my bridle and saddle 
from me the evening before; that, upon my complaining of 
this ill treatment, they threatened to take my horse ; that I 
learned from their convcrsation,there were more behind them ; 
that I took the first left hand by-road I met to avoid the rear 
guard, and got lost; that I lived near Spanish lake, north- 
west of Shrevesport, and was going to sec my brother-in-law. 



17 

who lived on the Calcasieu river. My tale was swallowed 
whole, for some of the same battalion were in the neighbor- 
hood the week before and took a fine horse from one of his 
neighbors ; but. upon his reporting the case to Gen. Smith, 
he got his horse back. He went with me three miles of the 
way; saw a Confederate captain and the man whose horse was 
taken the week before. He told them, briefly, how I was 
treated ; they gave me directions how to take by-roads to go 
to the Calcasieu river. Everyplace I stopped I told the same 
tale in order to account for my riding barebacked, and with 
a rope bridle. I got along finely until the afternoon of the 
next day; I got a bad scare, for, as I rose a hillock in the 
pine woods, right before me on a trail, within two hundred 
yards, was a squad of cavalry riding towards me. My hair 
stood on ends ; I thought it was " Bloody Bob" and his 
cursed crew. Making a virtue of necessity, I put on a bold 
face and rode on. I gave them the road, bowed, and saluted 
them politely. I do not know whether they observed my 
accoutrements or not; they passed on without asking me any 
questions, for which I was more than ordinarily thankful. 
I learned that night they were a squad of the Natchitoches 
conscript hunters. My grey beard was my protection from 
interruption. 

That night I rode by torchlight till I got to a Union man's 
house, and, having informed him who I was, he treated me 
very kindly. Next day I took by-roads and sometimes rode 
through the woods. In the evening I struck one of the roads 
leading from Texas to Alexandria ; I left the road to my left 
and struck through the woods. When I struck the public 
road again I thought I was at old Clark's old field, from 
where ran an old road to a friend's house. I entered the 
old field, but could find no road. I rode all round the planta- 
tion, when I saw a man riding a horse and leading another. 
I hailed him ; he stopped and turned back ; I asked him whose 
place it was; he answered, "Archie Smith's." " Then," said I, 
"I know where I am. I was lost; I thought it was old 
Clark's." I let down the fence and got out; he waited 
for me. He was a Creole Frenchman by the name of Van- 
saux; we rode up to Smith's gate; Smith was in the yard. 
Vansaux said, "Mr. Smith, here is a man I found in your 
field." I said, "No, you did not ; I hailed you and asked you 
whose place it was." He said, " Yes." Smith hollooed to his 
wife, "Bring me my double-barreled gun! bring me my dou- 
ble-barreled gun ! ! " very much alarmed. I started to ride ofE 
Vansaux haulted me and pointed at me a Derringer pistol, 
2 



18 

and ordered me to halt a second time. I said, " What shall I 
halt for ? you have no right to stop me on the public road." 
Smith kept hollooing to his wife for his double-barreled gun. 
I believe they aimed at killing me, for Smith knew me, and 
was one of the men who piloted Keary's company of cavalry 
to my house when I was first captured. I thought, therefore, I 
would risk the pistol before the double-barreled gun ; and as 
Smith's wife did not bring the gun as quickly as Smith wished, 
I set spurs to my horse as Vansaux presented the pistol at 
me a second time, swearing he would shoot me. I was look- 
ing at the muzzle of the pistol, and, as he shot, I saw the fire 
roll out of it; the horse being tired, having rode about 
seventy-five miles in little over a day and a half, and being 
in company with other horses, refused to answer to the spur. 
As Vansaux tired I threw myself a little on my left side, to 
dodge the bullet as the horse started, and if he had answered 
to the spur I would have dodged it. I fell off the horse, but 
caught on my feet, not feeling in the least hurt. I ran for 
a creek swamp about two hundred yards distant. When 
they saw me running, they became furious, thinking Van- 
saux missed me; they set Smith's dogs on me, and, as I ran, 
T found my right arm swinging and my hand slapping me in 
the face, and the dogs tearing my legs. Vansaux overtook 
me on horseback, with Smith's gun, and carried me back to 
the house. Upon examination I found my right arm broken 
about three indies below the shoulder joint, as I threw 
myself on my left side when Vansaux shot, my right arm 
being extended horizontally ; the ball, breaking the bone, 
traversed along the shoulder joint and lodged in the cartilage 
which connects the shoulder with the breast, where it 
remains to, this dwj. Smith and his wife bound up my arm 
the best they could; and when Smith saw I was entirely 
unarmed he appeared very sorry for what he had done. I 
must say, in jui tice to .Mrs. Smith, that were it not for her I 
should bare been shotto death; for, as Smith acknowledged, 
if his wife had handed him the gun when he called for it he 
would have put two loads of buckshot in my back as I ran 
toward the swamp. This took place on Saturday afternoon, 
on the 7th of November, 1863, eight miles w r est of Hineston 
and forty-three miles from Alexandria, Louisiana. 



19 



CHAPTER III. 



" Thou shalt behold him stretched in all the agonies 
Of a tormenting and shameful death, 
His bleeding bowels and his broken limbs 
Insulted o'er by a vile, butchering villain." 

When Major Keary first came to Hineston, he established 
what he called a " home guard." He sent out squads of 
cavalry and brought in every man and boy who was capable 
of bearing arms, and many who were too old to bear arms, 
under the ostensible purpose of protecting the country from 
the " Jayhawkers." He placed a man over them as captain 
by the name of Ivey. Ivey was a low-bred, petty grog-shop 
gambler, and as mean a wretch as ever disgraced human 
nature. " Bloody Bob" Martin was a gentleman, compared 
to Ivey, as the sequel in this narrative will show. This fel- 
low, with his company of " home guards," was stationed at 
Hineston. Smith and Vansaux forced me to go with them 
to Hineston, and so alarmed were they lest I might be res- 
cued from them by the Union men that they whipped my 
horse to make him keep pace with them, though I was now 
realizing keenly the effects of my wounded arm and broken- 
breast bone, and by the time we got to Hineston I was 
swollen from my breast to my back bone, the bandages being 
tied on when wounded. My arm swelled, and I was in the 
most excruciating agony. Here an underhanded game was 
playing without my knowledge. It was proposed by some 
of the company to kill me right off. I had a great many 
Union friends in the company, who, by way of intercession, 
stated that it was not necessary to kill me then ; that I would 
die anyhow. Others were lukewarm, or, through fear, 
were not willing to have my blood upon their hands; so that, 
when a vote was taken, only six voted for me to be shot. 

These were Ike Swett, a mulatto free negro, Taylor, 

the two brothers Hop and John Swan, Graham, and a 

young Roussou. Ivey, finding his company would not kill 
me, wrote to " Bloody Bob" to come from Lana Cocoa to 
kill me ; that he could do nothing with me with his com- 
pany ; and that I was not able to bear the journey, being too 
badly wounded. One of my friends stood behind Ivey whiie 
he was writing the letter, and told me next morning to get 



20 

away if I could, and pointed toward the place where there 
were no guards stationed. 

Next morning I got a friend to let my wife know the state 
of affairs, and tell her to come to see me and bring the chil- 
dren (six in number) along. She was sick, and, being natu- 
rally delicately constituted, the news of my late misfortunes 
only served to render the state of her health more precarious. 
Mrs. Nichols, of whom I spoke in the first chapter of this 
narrative, and living with my wife, brought, in an ox wagon, 
the five youngest ; the oldest boy being afraid if he went they 
would keep him a prisoner also. She brought me bed clothes 
and some food to nourish me. I told Mrs. Nichols I was not 
as bad off as I made it appear; that I was severely wounded 
and in great pain, it was true, but that my health was good; 
and if "Bloody Bob" did not come in a few days and kill 
me, the Union men would assist me to escape; also to tell old 
lady Boyd, whose three sons were in the woods from the 
beginning of the war, to have a horse ready every night; 
that if I effected my escape I would call on her on my way 
home. This plan was arranged between the two ladies. On 
Sunday evening one of "Bloody Bob's " men came to Hines- 
ton and told the guard in my hearing that Bob Martin would 
be certain to be in Hineston on the following day; that he 
started with a part of his company that morning from Lana. 
Cocoa. I now saw I was on the eve of life or death, for if 
Martin came he would show me no mercy. 

That night two men were placed as guards over me, both 
to guard and wait on me; and that night I was resolved, 
upon any reasonable chance presenting itself, to effect my 
escape. One of my friendly guards, when his turn came to 
watch and nurse me, laid down by the fire at my feet and 
fell fast asleep, as did his comrade also; previous to this I 
told Ifhem I surely had to go out in the night, and had them 
to put on my shoes and lace thorn tightly, and fix my blanket 
over my shoulders. I then laid down", or rather had to be 
laid down, for I was quite or nearly helpless. About ten 
o'clock all the dompany, as well as my guards, were fast 
asleep, as I judged from the quiet which reigned in the camp. 
I made three efforts to get up, but fa ! Ved ; f thought of Rob- 
ert Bruce and the spider, and renewed my efforts, though 
with great pain; with God's help I succeeded, the fourth 
effort I made, to get in asi-.ting posture, and being strong in 
my extremities I got on my "knees; laying my left hand 
upon a bench near me I stood upright, lifted the latch of the 
door and walked out. It being a fine, clear moonlight night 



21 

I looked around, and seeing no person stirring, walked 
slowly (I could not move fast) towards the Calcasieu river 
swamp, through an old field, and struck the Texas road from 
Alexandria about six hundred yards from the guardhouse. 
It was three miles to Mrs. Boyd's, and in traveling through 
the swamp I had to go a new-cut road, full of stumps and 
roots. If I had had the misfortune to have fallen clown, I do 
not think I could have risen again; but Providence favored 
me, and I got safely to the old lady's house. She was true to 
her engagement; she had her old riding horse ready in the 
lot, and her two daughters lifted me on the old horse. Next 
morning the young women took my back track from their 
home to the swamp and put out my tracks, the roads being 
very dry and dusty. If the rebels knew of their aiding me in 
escaping they would burn their house ; which, by the way, 
was afterwards burned by the bloody wretches, Martin and 
Ivey, after Banks evacuated Alexandria in 1864. 

I got home safe and turned the old horse loose, lest any 
person should be seen carrying him home. My wife, upon 
seeing me return once more alive, rallied from her sickness, 
which was more the effect of her bereavement upon my ac- 
count than from any constitutional malady. I changed my 
bloody clothes, and a little before day went into the swamp, 
with my two little sons to nurse me. Early next morning a 
squad of fifteen men, with a lieutenant, one Matthew Lynch, 
came to my house looking for me; as a matter of course 
nobody had seen me ; they inquired for my sons ; they were told 
they had gone to Texas. Lynch started on the Texas road in- 
quiring for them. Next day the search was made with more 
men; the swamp was scoured; one of my camping places 
was found, and an empty milk bottle ; this encouraged them 
to a more minute and extended search; but every night I 
moved my camp, and lay up during the day in the cane and 
undergrowth, whilst my boys kept a good look-out ; not a 
bird or squirrel could hop on a limb without their hearing 
it. My enemies put out an order — Ivey and " Bloody Bob" — 
that wherever we were caught there we should be shot. My 
Union friends would send my wife word of everything that 
passed, and one of my boys would steal up to my house to 
get provisions and learn the news. I told the boys, in case 
we should be surprised, to get away the best way they could, 
and leave me to my fate. 

The fourth day after my escape my friends sent my wife 
word that a hundred men were to hunt for me, and that I 
had better move further from home. We accordingly started 



22 

for the " Bay," a large swamp which ran parallel with the 
Calcasieu river, and from one to two miles distant. I could 
travel but slowly ; one of the boys carried the bed clothes, 
and the other, provisions. It was twenty-five miles to the 
"Bay;" we traveled by night, and laid up in the swamp by 
day. On the ninth day after being shot, I got to a Union 
man's house by the name of Cloud. The rebels afterwards 
killed one of his brothers, and hung his father, an old man 
upwards of seventy years of age, for carrying provisions to 
his sons in the swamp. My arm had not been dressed since 
I was shot. Cloud and myself and my boys, and some more 
Union men who were at his house, went into the river 
swamp to dress my arm. The stays and bandages which 
bound my arm were so glued together from the blood 
and corruption as they coagulated, that the bandages had to 
be cut off with a knife; the corruption, when at liberty to 
flow, ran in a stream to the ground, and under my arm there 
was a tablespoonful of worms. In fact, I stunk like carrion. 

I was now informed that I had better not go in the " Bay," 
as most of the neighbors here had joined Ivey's company, 
and they knew every foot of the camping ground from 
being in the swamp themselves ; and the weather being so 
dry, very little water was to be had there but from stagnated 
pools, and they would be sure to hunt for me about the water- 
courses. So I went into the river swamp ; it was here so 
thick with cane and undergrowth, that a man could hardly be 
seen ten feet distant. Here I was in comparative safety; but 
another difficulty presented itself. The Union men who 
lived here had been so harassed for the last two years by 
the rebels, that they raised nothing bat a few potatoes, which 
their wives cultivated. When my little stock of provisions, 
which my boys brought with them, failed, I could get noth- 
ing to -eat but a few sweet potatoes, and not many of them; 
these were my only food for the last five days I remained in 
this neighborhood. 

I learned from the Clouds that the home guard found that 
I had quit the neighborhood in which I lived, and were 
coming to hunt me where I now stayed ; so I left for home, 
traveling by night and laying up in the swamps by day ; 
On the morning of the sixteenth day after being shot, I got 
home — not to the house, but near it. I got clean clothes, 
and plenty of good nourishment, and, instead of going into 
the big swamp, camped on a little creek about a mile from 
-home, believing they would hunt for me in the large swamp 
and overlook the little creek, which was the case. On one 



occasion while there, it rained all night and the next day, 
and as my camp was composed of a few poles, and covered 
with but a single quilt, I sent tht boys home to sleep in the 
fodder house. My wife was uneasy, and would not let the 
boys stay, but sent them back; her prudence here, I believe, 
saved my life, for about half an hour before they returned my 
arm got to paining me to such a degree that I thought I could 
not live till morning. I had the boys to unloose the ban- 
dages and take off the stays, upon which my arm run black 
blood to at least a pint; when it quit running the pain ceased. 

At this time all but very few of the Union men joined 
Ivey's company to keep from being torn up. I could scarcely 
trust anybody. He issued an order that no person should 
go to my house or do anything for my wife. My faithful 
Mrs. Nichols — I learn she is now dead — Ivey put in the guard- 
house; but I still had friends left in spite of him. A young 
man by the name of Levi Pedro, a paroled soldier from Port 
Hudson, and his brother-in-law, by the name of Johnson, 
though in Ivey's company, would go to my house by night and 
kill her a hog, and cut her wood, and do many things for 
her. Also, a widow Bass would send her daughter across 
the swamp, and carry her meal, and take her foul Ikien 
under her saddle as saddle-cloths, to wash, and bring them 
back in a loose sack under her riding skirt. Pedro joined 
the Louisiana scouts, and is now, I learn, in Illinois. 

I was now mending fast, and could travel comparatively 
well, when my friend Rollin Wetherford sent his darughter 
to my wife to let her know that two hundred men (Ivey and 
" Bloody Bob's" companies) were to hunt every hole and 
corner for me the day following. This was the twenty-third 
day after being shot. So, about two hours before day on a 
frosty Sunday morning, 29th of November, we started to 
Sugartown, about thirty miles southwest, on the road to 
Nibblet's Bluff, Texas. At sunrise I got to old John Doyle's, 
a free negro. I went in to warm. One of his sons, belong- 
ing to the " home guard," was at home. I had no fears of 
them, but they had of me, so strictly and severely this wretch 
punished any person who disobeyed his orders; and his 
lieutenants, the Swans, were equally as bad as he. I sat by 
the fire to warm. There was a pot of cornmeal coffee boil- 
ing, and I longed to get a cup even of this ; but the old jade, 
instead of giving me a cup of coffee, told me I had better 
leave, as they were looking for some of the company every 
moment, going that way to Hineston. I left, and about a 
mile from the house I quit the road and laid in the woods 



24 

all day, it freezing all the time. The boys could jump and 
dance, (we dare not make asfire, lest the smoke would attract 
attention,) while I had to lay on my back. Sometimes one 
of the boys would sit on my feet to keep me from freezing. 
Before sundown we started, and traveled about five miles. 
This was but a settlement road ; I dared not travel the public 
or military road. I knew the road forked somewhere not 
far from where I had now got to. We were now warm from 
traveling, and, being tired, we laid down till the moon rose, 
bo we would not miss our way, and when we woke up we 
were almost frozen. The moon having risen, we started on 
our journey. It was very cold ; it was the coldest winter, in 
this latitude, I have known for twenty-five years. When we 
came to Six Mile creek it had to be crossed on a small cypress 
foot-log. Ilerc was a hard case for me ; hardly able to travel 
on level land, how was I to cross the creek on a foot-log? 
My boys' hands were almost frozen ; it was with great diffi- 
culty they could cut me a hand-pole with a dull knife. They 
had then to steady me on the log, I having but one hand to 
use, and the log bobbing up and down. If I should fall in, I 
should be either drowned or frozen to death ; but God was 
with me, for I crossed the frail bridge in safety; and, after 
crossing two more creeks on foot-logs, but more firm, I got 
to a friend's house — a cousin to my wife — about three hours 
before day. »I woke' them up; they got us breakfast, and, 
after being well warmed, we laid down on a comfortable pallet 
near the fire. The madam washed my coat ; it was covered 
with the corruption that ran from my arm. 

The next morning I started again, leaving my youngest 
son here. I got by the following evening to my old friend 
Harrington's. He and his son had gone to Texas, to keep 
from being conscripted, under the ostensible excuse of pur- 
chasing beeves for the Confederate army. I would here 
remark, by the way, that a scoundrel from Sandersville, 
Rapides parish, 'Nat, Sanders by name, and his son, were 
with the two Barringtons in Texas, upon the same business, 
and, after getting back, Sanders joined "Bloody Bob's" 
company and hunted the Barringtons. The eider Barringtou 
was taken sic2v in the swamp, and went home and died. 
Two days afterwards they captured his son, and it was left 
to this wretch (Sanders) to say whether he should be killed 
or not, as he was with him in^Texas ; so, after a short con- 
sultation with the officers, young Barringtou was tied to a 
tree and shot dead. 

" Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals, 
How sweet a plant have you untimely cropped !" 



25 

The Barringtons were originally from Twiggs county, 
Georgia. After killing young Barrington, they heard of his 
father's death; and, to be certain that he was dead, they 
went to his house, and swore that if he was not dead they 
would " dead" him. 

Whilst at Barrington's I sent for my old friend, Br. Far- 
quaher. The doctor and his family were from Ohio. He 
came to see me. He told me of his being captured by the 
rebels, and his son also. The son they put in the army; but 
he stayed but a few days, when he made his escape. Himself 
they were going to kill, and had their guns presented at his 
breast. General Walker being present, he asked the general 
what charges were against him, more than that he was a 
Union man ; that he was a Northern man by birth ; that if 
they killed every man who was a Union man for merely 
being a Union man, he thought the Confederacy must be 
at a low ebb. General Walker saw nothing against him 
to warrant his being put to death, and immediately ordered 
his release. 

I now consulted with the doctor as to what course I had 
better pursue, which way I had better take; that there was no 
chance for me to remain in this section of the country, crip- 
pled as I was. He advised me to go to Captain Carrier, near 
Opelousas ; that he had upwards of fifty true men with him, 
and that he would, no doubt, send me to some of his French 
friends, where I would be taken care of till I got able to 
travel; to come to his house the following night, and he 
would have a horse, and go with me some distance. I here 
left my oldest boy to take care of himself; and as the rebels 
knew the Barrington's were gone to Texas, it was not likely 
they would call that way, as it was a mile from the public 
road. 

I went to the doctor's next night ; he was waiting for me. 
I got on the horse, and he walked ahead, leading the horse 
by the bridle. We had not got three-quarters of a mile 
when, close by a rebel's house, the horse stumbled, and, 
being tender in the mouth, jerked the bridle out of his hand, 
and so unable was I to ride that the horse threw me, and, 
unfortunately, I fell on my broken arm. The pain was so 
acute I could not help crying out with some woeful excla- 
mations ; but the poor doctor was as badly scared as I was 
hurt. He mildly informed me that lies was a rebel, and 
there might be rebels at his house, who, if they heard any 
noise, might come out and capture me. I was as quiet as a 
lamb, despite my agony, and laid down by a tree ; the horse 



26 

ran home; the doctor followed him, and brought him back, 
with another gentle old horse for me to ride. We now got 
on the horses, and went along very well, about four miles, 
till we got to a friend's house by the name of Pollard. Pol- 
lard was not at home; he was a conscript, and in the swamp. 
The doctor examined my arm, to see if it was rebroken; but 
it was not; but it swelled up, apparently double its former 
size. Mrs. Pollard had me a comfortable feather bed made 
down by the fire, and had me a cup of Confederate coffee 
made early next morning before I started. 

I would here remark, with regard to the members of this 
family, there were Pollard's wife, and his brother's widow 
and children, and four orphan children — in all ten children. 
Pollard joined my company, and went with me to New 
Orleans — when General Banks left the Red river — where he 
died at the barrack's hospital. Here was a distressed family, 
having nothing to support them. 

Next morning at daybreak I started on foot, weak and 
sick enough with pain from the fall, from the house where I 
was, to get to a Union man's house, by the name of Green 
Pharris. I walked on the grass, lest my tracks would betray 
me ; and so weak was I that I thought I could never get 
there. It took me four hours to travel four miles. When 
I got to Pharris' he was not at home. I told his wife who I 
was ; and, knowing me from character, she was glad to see 
me. She had no meat; but she killed me a chicken, and 
made me nice soup. She dressed my arm; the blood and 
matter had run down to my shoes — the fall from the horse 
making it bleed afresh. I laid on the bed to rest, and about 
an hour by sun her sister came, and said that a part of Ivey's 
company were at her house and captured her husband, Paul 
Young. Here was cause for fresh alarm. Not long after- 
wards Pharris came home, badly scared, confirming the news 
of Lieutenant Swan being in the neighborhood, and that it 
was dangerous for me to remain at his house — as he was a 
conscript it was very probable they might come to capture 
him — and advised me to go to the old man Burt's ; he was 
over age, and it was very likely they would not go to his house, 
as they had not as yet even called there. In going to Burt's 
I had to cross a large creek; but the foot-log was in propor- 
tion to the creek, and flattened on the top side. I got over 
without any difficulty. It was dark when I got to Barfs : 
but I had no difficulty in the way of entertainment. These 
poor people, as soon as I would tell them my name, knew 
me at once, my misfortunes and persecutions having been 



27 

the theme of sympathy since I was captured. I told Burt 
that Pharos, as was agreed upon, was to be at his house 
before day, and take me to the conscript's camp, on the Big 
Whiskychitta creek. That night there were four or five 
guns fired off at the "cavalry" camp, and Pharris, being 
somewhat of a timid nature, got scared, and, instead of call- 
ing for me, broke to a creek swamp, six miles from home. 
Burt, finding that Pharris did not come, and hearing the 
guns, went to see what became of Pharris; but finding him 
gone he, too, caught the contagion of alarm, and at break 
of day woke me, saying, with considerable agitation, "Mr. 
Haynes, you are in danger." Pie then informed me of the 
guns being fired off, of Pharris' alarm, and that the " cav- 
alry" was camped but four miles from his house. 

I now had to diverge from my direct course. Burt went 
with me about a mile and a half, to show me the way where 
I had to cross the Whiskyckitta creek. It was a bad pros- 
pect for me, sure enough; the creek was about sixty feet 
wide, and eight or ten feet deep — the foot-log a sweet gum, 
blown up by the roots from the opposite bank, and full of 
limbs. Burt could not walk a log but on "all fours." I tied 
my saddle-bags round my neck, to have the use of my left 
hand to hold to the limbs — my blanket round my shoulders 
blowing by the wind, and catching to the limbs of the foot- 
log. But I could not swim ; so, if I had fallen in the creek, the 
weight of the saddle-bags round my neck and the blanket as 
an incumbrance, I should certainly have been drowned. But 
a kind Providence, in whom I put my trust, carried me over 
safely. Not far, within sight, was a house at which I was to 
call, to put me on the trail that led to a good Union man's 
house, by the name of Jones, and from thence to old Billy 
Simmons'. 

Here, as I came through the field within plain view of the 
house, I had a new but (as it turned out) unnecessary alarm. 
I saw two horses saddled in the yard, and several men in the 
gallery looking very earnestly toward me. My broken-arm 
coat sleeve being sewed up and my blanket over my shoul- 
ders, I put on a bold face, making a virtue of necessity, for 
if they were enemies it was too late to retreat. So I walked 
up boldly and saluted them. I do not know who were the 
most alarmed, they or I. Upon a close examination I dis- 
covered two or three budgets lying on the gallery. One of 
the men began to question me pretty closely, to know where 
I was going and what my business was ; and, seeing their 
anxiety about my business, and that their baggage did not 



28 

correspond with soldiers' baggage, I remarked that it looked 
like, from their budgets, they were inhabitants of the woods. 
My loquacious friend answered, smilingly : " It does look so." 
I then informed them that they had better look sharp; that 
the " cavalry" was on the other side of the creek the pre- 
vious evening, and captured Paul Young. This made them 
open their eyes, for two of the four were Young's brothers. 
They had came from near Opelousas, and were going home; 
so they concluded to return down the creek to a camp 
where there were some more conscripts. I told them my 
way laid in that course and I would go with them, whispering 
to the spokesman that among women and children I did not 
wish to make myself known, but would tell them who I was 
as I went along. One of the Youngs gave me his horse to 
ride, and when I told them who I was they were ready to do 
anything for me — nay, die in my defence. I rode with 
Young about seven miles, till I came to Big Whisky chitta 
creek. Young went down the creek, crossed on a foot-log, 
came up on the other side to where a canoe was tied, and fer- 
ried me over. I laid on my back in the little boat lest I might 
fall overboard. It was but about three-quarters of a mile to 
old Billy Simmons' house. I walked up to the fence and called 
the old man out, I briefly told him who I was, and asked 
if he had heard of the " cavalry" being out. He knew me 
by reputation, and was glad to see me. He and his wife, 
during the three days I stayed with them, nursed me as if I 
was one of their own sons. Finding his house was on the 
mail route to Opelousas, and some Texian soldiers having 
called there, I was apprehensive, and so was he, that it would 
not be a safe place for me to stay any longer, though, from 
my wound, over-anxiety for my safety, and weariness, I felt 
very weak. 

He saddled a couple of horses, and rode with me himself 
to within a mile of Carrier's ferry, on the Calcasieu river. 
The bridge over a little creek within a mile of Carrier's being 
broken, the horses could not cross. The old man fixed me a 
foot-log to cross dry-footed. He then bade me God-speed, 
and returned home. 

The old man Carrier was a Creole Frenchman, and neither 
he nor any of his family could speak English. He was not 
at home when I got to his house ; but a man by the name of 
Beyham, who lived a few miles from there, and who could 
speak both French and English, happened to be at Carrier's 
when I got there. I told him my name ; he knew me well, 
though he had never seen me before. It was but a short 



29 

time before this that the " cavalry" had him a prisoner, and 
made him dig his grave. I do not recollect now how he 
made out to get away. When the old man Carrier came, 
Beyham told him who I was. The old man was glad to see 
me, but, his house being upon the public road, and the 
" cavalry" having his ferry as a regular crossing place, he 
thought it would be a bad place for me to stay. He then 
was informed that I only wanted to stay till morning, and, 
if he could not carry me to a friend's house about eleven 
miles further on, that I wanted to get to his brother's, Captain 
Carrier. The old gentleman and his lady took good care of 
me, had my arm dressed, and gave me one of the best beds 
in the house to sleep on. Next morning he took me in his 
buggy to his friend's house, eleven miles on the road to 
Opelousas. I am sorry I have forgotten this man's name. 

I was now finally exhausted, and could travel no further; 
I remained with this good man seven days. He nursed me 
like a brother, for which I shall forever feel thankful. He 
also sent his little son with me on horseback across the prai- 
rie, it being impassable on foot, and afterwards I traveled 
three miles till I came to a Creole Frenchman's house, to 
whom I was directed. He was a paroled soldier from Vicks- 
burg, but swore he would not go to fight any more. He 
took me in his tilbury, about five miles, across another 
prairie. I walked two miles to another Union man's house, 
where I stayed all night. Here, while he was dressing my 
arm, a piece of bone came out of the wound. He next day 
carried me in his buggy about six miles. I was now within 
five miles of Captain Carrier's; but I lost my way in the 
Bayou Mallet swamp, and could not find the bridge nor a 
foot-log; till, tired from looking for one, I saw a log reaching 
across the creek, about six inches under water. I with much 
difficulty cut a little sapling to answer for a set-pole, and 
with equal difficulty took off my shoes and socks, tied my 
saddle-bags round my neck, and slid down the bank the best 
way I could to the foot-log. I got over safely, my chief diffi- 
culty being in putting on my shoes and socks, for it hurt me 
to stoop, my breast bone hurting me as well as my arm. 
Seeing an opening I made towards it, and struck the public 
road to Opelousas. I inquired at the first house I came to 
for Captain Carrier's residence, and after getting directions 
where to leave the Opelousas road, I again made inquiries. 
Here I was questioned very closely by every man who could 
talk English, «hd, after much difficulty — in having to cross 
the Bayou Mallet a second time, and in finding the Catholic 



30 

church where I was told I should find the captain's domi- 

cil when I got there I could get no direct information. 

None of the women of whom I made inquiry could speak 
English; here I was in a quandary, till two men, quad- 
roons, rode up, one of whom could speak pretty good Eng- 
lish. After satisfying themselves that I was all right — for, 
as he said, they were looking for an old man who was 
wounded in the arm — he informed me of the exact locality 
of Captain Carrier, and volunteered his services to carry me 
to where he lived. I was now again exhausted and could 
go no further; but he said it was only a mile and a half, and 
to get behind him on his horse, which I did. He however 
did not take me to the *captain, but to a house where three 
men were secreted, who, to my joy and their's also, were the 
three brothers Boyds, and sons to the old lady who furnished 
me the horse the night I made my escape from Hineston. 
They were truly glad to see me, and as I was, excepting my 
wounds, in excellent health and as hungry as a wolf, the boys 
[prepared me supper, which consisted of corn bread, sweet 
potatoes, fresh pork, and Confederate coffee ; to all of which 
!' I did ample justice. 

Next day I saw Captain Carrier. He is a pure-blooded 
Creole Frenchman ; speaks no language but broken French; 
had he had a good education he might have been a man of 
note, and made his mark in the world ; but, unfortunately 
for himself, he is quite illiterate. I next day went to an old 
quadroon lady's house, where the captain boarded, and 
stayed with her about two weeks. My arm now began to 
heal, but I could not move my hand as yet. I went back to 
the Boyds', and we lived together for about ten days. During 
this time my oldest son came to me; he was afraid he would 
be captured. There were a thousand and one rumors of 
the " Yankees" coming up to "Washington and other places, 
and we were kept in a continual state of excitement, not 
knowing what to do. I told my son to get himself some em- 
ployment where he would be safe, and I would run the risk 
and try to get to the Federal army; but how to get there 
was a question easier asked than answered. I had but $30 
in Confederate money, and no horse ; the distance to New 
Iberia, where the Federal army was stationed, being upwards 
of eighty miles; the prairies knee-deep in water, and the 
roads ditto in mud, brought to my memory the exclamation 
of King Richard the Third after the battle of Hastings — 
" A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse!" 



31 

CHAPTER IV. 



"A prison is a house of care, 

A place where none can thrive, 
A touchstone true to try a friend, 

A grave for one alive ; 
Sometimes a place of right, 

Sometimes a place of wrong, 
Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, 

And honest men among." 

I finally obtained from a quadroon a poor prairie pony, 
which he had taken up somewhere ; he was very poor, and 
hardly able to carry me. I got a pair of old plow bits and 
a piece of raw cowhide, of which the Boyds made me a bri- 
dle, and in lieu of a saddle had a corn sack stuffed with 
moss strapped on the pony's back with rawhide thongs, and 
straps of the same material for stirrups. I now hired a free 
negro to pilot me to the Yankee lines for $30 in Confederate 
money. He could not speak a word of English, nor could 
I speak French ; so we rode along like two dummies, and 
traveled all night ; it was cold and freezing, and by an hour 
after sunrise we got, about half way to New Iberia, to a 
friend's house, (a quadroon.) My Rosanante gave out, and 
so did I, for I was taken with a violent cold, and laid up 
three days ; during which time I learned to my great morti- 
fication that the Federal army had moved to Franklin, 
twenty-eight miles down the Teche, from New Iberia. I now 
swapped horses with my guide ; he was to go with me to 
Franklin, but he only went with me till I got on the public 
road on the east side of the Teche, then left me, keeping the 
$30. I rode along, and at St. Martinsville had to swim my 
pony, the bridge being burned. I went to a negro's house who 
kept a kind of a tavern, and learned from him the situation 
of affairs in general. I was afraid to trust my secret to any 
white person, there being a squadron of rebel cavalry camped 
near St. Martinsville. Learning from citizens, whom I 
heard conversing about the Yankees, that the small-pox had 
been in New Iberia, and that they left a doctor and nurses 
there to tend the sick, and having found the locality of the 
hospital, I resolved the next night to leave the pony with the 
old negro, and travel on foot nine miles. I set out after 



32 

dark, sometimes through the plantations and sometimes on 
the road. I was taken very sick again, and laid down sev- 
eral times to rest. I got to New Iberia about eleven o'clock 
at night; and seeing the light in the hospital I knocked at 
the hall door, and was answered by a soldier of the 114th 
New York infantry, who was one of the nurses. I told him 
what was the matter, and wished to see the doctor. My rea- 
son for wishing to stay in the hospital being, that there was 
no chance of detection unless I should be betrayed; I did 
not dread the infectious disease, having been inoculated with 
the small-pox when a youth, and knowing the Southerners 
all dread the small-pox as much as a Northern man would 
the yellow fever, and as none were allowed to leave the 
hospital but the doctor and the nurses ; and as the doctor was 
a Federal officer, and the nurses Federal soldiers, I thought 
myself safe enough till the following night, when I intended 
to start for Franklin, by a " flank movement," through the 
prairie by the rebel pickets, which were stationed along the 
public road that ran from New Iberia to Franklin. But I 
calculated without my host, for I was basely betrayed by the 
Federal doctor. 

When I got to the hospital the nurses informed me that 
the doctor had gone down to the Yankee picket lines, and 
would not return till some time next day. The nurses were 
two Irishmen ; one's name was McCormick. They took a 
lively interest in me when I related, briefly, a part of the 
troubles I had encountered. About three o'clock in the 
afternoon the doctor came to the hospital, and seemed some- 
what surprised to see me there, w T ith my arm in a sling. I 
briefly told him what my business was, and, as a matter of 
course, he being a Federal officer, I acquainted him with the 
main particulars of my case. He said : " This is no place 
for you to be. Have you been vaccinated?" I answered : 
"No; but I have been inoculated, and I only wish to stay 
for protection till night, 1 ' This was the substance of our 
conversation. Ho left me. I would have staked my life on 
his fidelity ; but, alas! I was doomed to a sad disappointment. 
The doctor's name was Hubbard, and he Avas assistant sur- 
geon to a Zouave regiment from New York. 

About four o'clock in the afternoon of the 16th of January, 
1864, McCormick, one of the nurses, came into the room 
where I was. He looked as pale as death. I knew some- 
thing unpleasant had happened before he spoke a word. His 
first words were : " You are betrayed; here come six of the 
devils, with their carbines, right for the hospital." And, 



sure enough, they were coming. Some went round the house, 
while the sergeant in front demanded of the nurses to bring 
out that man who was wounded ! Seeing all hopes of escape 
cut off, I went out, and was greeted with a salutation that 
was anything but pleasant or gentlemanly. They ordered me 
to march ahead of them, cursing and damning me as we went. 
One offered me fifty dollars if I would run. They would ask 
me desultory questions, and, as I would be about to reply, 
they would curse me and push me along with the butts of 
their guns. I saw my two poor Irishmen walk along on the 
opposite side of the street. They looked the picture of despair; 
for, as they afterwards told me, they expected me to be shot 
every moment. 

They now brought me to their headquarters, which was 
in a deserted livery stable, and I was confronted by their 
commander, Major J. D. Blair, of the 2d Louisiana (rebel) 
cavalry. A Captain Stafford, from Rapides parish, was also 
present. I was now subjected to a strict examination, men- 
tal and bodily, for the traitorous doctor informed them of 
my arm being broken, and, in substance, of everything I told 
him. I was ordered to strip off my clothes, so they might 
examine my wounds; having bound my arm with woolen 
bandages to keep out the cold, and it being tedious to unloose 
them, the gallant major ordered them to be torn off, which 
was done with as little ceremony as if I had been a brute 
instead of a human being. 

"When asked how I came to get my arm broken, though I 
despise from my soul any prevarication from truth, yet the 
desperate situation in which I found myself placed made me 
make statements which were not in accordance with truth, 
in order to save my life. I stated in general terms that my 
arm was broken in an affray ; that my coming to New Iberia 
was in search of a daughter whose husband was killed at the 
siege of Port Hudson ; that when last she wrote me she was 
at St. Martinsville ; that I was informed at the latter place 
that she came to jSTew Iberia as a laundress to some Federal 
officers ; that the cause of my going into the hospital was, that 
I could see no light in any house but at the hospital, and, being- 
sick, (which was a fact,) I called to get some medicine. My 
going into the Yankee hospital, they said, instead of coming to 
their quarters, laid me liable to a strong suspicion of my not 
being all right. I declared (which was a truth) that I did 
not know they were encamped in town, as a Confederate 
soldier told me the day before that they were encamped fur- 
ther down toward the Federal pickets. My name, I told 
3 



B4 

them, was John O'Brien, and that I lived in the Sugartown 
district of Calcasieu parish. I had the precaution to place 
my residence in a district where I knew the inhabitants, ex- 
pecting; that men were there in the different regiments from 
almost every section of the country; what I suspected proved 
to be a feet, as they asked me if I knew any persons there, 
and, if so, to name them ; upon which I readily gave the names 
of Dr. Farquaher, the lies, the Johnsons, &c. This satisfied 
'them that thus far I told the truth; but it bore against me, 
from the fact that the Sugartown district were mostly all 
Union men, or, as the rebels called them, " Jayhawkers.''" 
I was searched for papers, but none were found upon my 
person to give any clue to who I really was. They put a 
guard over me, and, having but a light, single blanket, and 
the night piercing cold, with the soft side of a rough plank 
for my bed, I suffered severely ; having also a bad cold, which 
was the occasion of spitting blood all the night and next day, 
and great pain, which I incurred from the rough manner in 
which they made an ante mortem examination of my fractured 
limb. 

Next morning, before I got anything to eat, I was ordered 
to get ready to march. A piece of corn bread and fresh 
beef were thrust into my hand, and I was told to get into a 
Kttle wagon which was passing. I did so as soon as I could, 
for I was unable to travel on foot a single mile. The 
provost marshal of Vermillionville and his guard escorted 
me to the town. I was placed in the sheriff's office, in the 
court house, in which the provost guard had a pile of corn, 
and a guard placed over me. Here I underwent another 
examination by Lieutenant WMtaker, the provost marshal; 
but, as I gave the same answers here to similar questions as 
those propounded to me at New Iberia, my name was placed 
upon the guard book as " John O'Brien, of Calcasieu parish, 
arrested by Major J. I). Blair, 2d Louisiana cavalry, at New 
Iberia," and charged with being a suspicious character. 

I was now for the third time cribbed, if not caged ; and 
if no person came who should identify me, I hoped to be 
able to effect my escape, or get discharged in a short time. 
So I formed to myself a line of policy not to give the least 
possible suspicion of my having any idea to make my escape; 
and I gave out that, as 1 was captured without a just cause, 
neither would I leave without being honorably discharged. 

Sooner than expected, I had an opportunity of proving to 
the provost marshal my sincerity of the foregoing statement. 
Having slept but very little at New Iberia, and being weary 



35 

from my ride in a rough traveling vehicle, I coiled myself 
on the pile of corn, and fell fast asleep. When I awoke my 
guard was fast asleep, too, and snoring away. I now de- 
termined on my escape, and to make for Vermilion bayou, 
and, if I could find no means of crossing otherwise, to swim 
over the best I could with one arm. The chance for escape 
seemed so favorable, that I sat right up and put my blanket 
over my shoulders — when I was doomed to another bitter 
disappointment. 

Just as I was about to walk out — for the door was not 
locked nor the windows fastened — I heard the heavy tramp 
of a pair of boots in the passage, which proved to be the 
provost marshal, coming to visit the guard. Seeing my 
hopes of escape cut off this time, I thought I would make a 
virtue of necessity, and prove very conclusively to the pro- 
vost marshal my being entirely innocent of being any such 
a person as a "suspicious character." As he took hold of 
the knob of the door-latch, I took an ear of corn in my left 
hand, and, as the provost marshal opened the door, struck 
the sentry with it, and woke him as the lieutenant en- 
tered, he seeing the ear of corn fall on the floor. He gave 
the sentry one of the devil's blessings, remarking, "that 
man might have made his escape, if he had a mind to." I 
replied I did not intend to leave, unless honorably discharged, 
as I had been arrested without any just cause. "I believe 
it; I believe it," he replied, "and I shall do everything I can 
for you." 

I was the only prisoner they had, with the exception of a 
little Englishman who deserted from the Federals ; but I was 
not long so, for in a few days they brought to jail a young 
man charged as being a guide to the Federals when Banks 
drove Taylor from the Teche; and the day following they 
brought in old Judge Belden, whom they sent, in a day or 
two afterwards, to Alexandria. In the course of a week the 
room was crowded with prisoners under different charges ; 
some as being spies, some for desertion, and some as con- 
scripts. The sheriff's office not being a secure place of con- 
finement, the jail, being very foul, was now cleaned out, and 
the prisoners were ordered into it. I had been, in the mean- 
time, very sick, and had to have a doctor to visit me. I was 
treated very scientifically, and soon got better ; but my fare, 
for a sick man, was very coarse and indifferent. I was not 
put into the jail-house with the others for a few days during 
my convalescence. I was at liberty to walk all over the court- 
house and yard, but slept in the jail at night, except the 



36 

first. I might have made my escape unperceived, but I did 
not feel well enough to travel, and having secured the in- 
terest of the provost marshal, by my apparent disinterest- 
edness, I hoped in a few days to be released. After being 
confined here about two weeks, three Federal prisoners were 
brought in, and they, with others charged with crimes, were 
sent to headquarters at Alexandria. This gave me hopes 
of my being shortly set at liberty, for if I had been charged 
with any heinous offence I would have been packed off there 
too. 

After being thus confined for twenty-eight days I was, to 
my great joy, informed that Col. Vincent had ordered my re- 
lease, at the special and frequent solicitations of Lieutenant 
Whitaker, the provost marshal. More especially, as the lieu- 
tenant informed me, he had written to the enrolling officer of 
Calcasieu parish to know if there were any charges against 
" John O'Brien" of that parish. The enrolling officer wrote 
back that "John O'Brien" was a loyal citizen. I was informed 
afterwards at ISTew Orleans, by a refugee by the name of 
Smith, that there lived at that time in Calcasieu parish a man 
by the name of John O'Brien, who was a good rebel ; so they 
turned me out of jail as being the Simon-pure "John O'Brien" 
of Calcasieu parish, the provost marshal giving me a pass- 
port to my home there. So I bid them good-bye, regretting 
I conkl not travel any further in that direction in search of my 
fictitious daughter. 

During my confinement in this filthy prison I had been 
literally covered with vermin. There was scarcely the 
breadth of the palm of my hand on which there was not a 
scab, and on some parts a dozen, having to tear my flesh, from 
the itch occasioned by these noxious vermin. I had been six 
weeks without a change of linen, having but two shirts and 
very light clothing; I had, to keep from suffering from cold, 
to wear them both at once. I tried several times at Vermil- 
lionville to get one washed, but could not. 



37 

CHAPTER V. 



" I'll read you matter deep and dangerous ; 
As full of peril and advent' rous spirit, 
As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud, 
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear." 

During my confinement in Vermilionville I became 
acquainted with an Irish conscript, belonging to Captain 
Schemell's company, 2d Louisiana (rebel) cavalry, who had 
been under arrest and confinement forty days, for not report- 
ing in due time after being exchanged; he was captured, or 
rather got himself captured, at ISTew Iberia, by getting drunk,' 
in order, as he told me, to give the Yankees a chance to cap- 
ture him. He was from Morganzia, Louisiana. He gave 
me a way-bill to Port Hudson, and told me where the rebel 
pickets were stationed. I made the best of my way back, 
fifteen miles northwest of Opelousas, where my oldest son 
was concealed with the Union Creole French. I then put 
a suit of his clothes on, and had my filthy ones washed, and 
two days afterwards started on foot for Port Hudson. I heard 
of a good Union man by the name of Pitch living in Wash- 
ington, on the Bayou Cortabla. When I got to his house he 
was not at home; his wife, upon informing her of my busi- 
ness, kindly received me into her house, and kept me all 
night. 

I tried to get on board of a flat-boat to go down the bayou 
to the Atchafalaya river, but I was informed by a Frenchman, 
a Union man, that Dick Taylor would allow no cotton to be 
shipped from there by private individuals ; that all the cotton 
shipped was " government" cotton ; that a Captain Lyon was 
hired by " Little Dick" to purchase cotton for him, to be de- 
livered at the mouth of the Cortabla, at fifty cents, Confederate 
money; that " Little Dick's" brother-in-law was then deliver- 
ing the cotton to merchants from Illinois, who were paying 
for it in gold and silver. 

On the morning of the 16th of February, 1864, I left 
Washington for Port Hudson. It snowed pretty much all 
day. In the height of the snow storm I left the town unper- 
ceived, and traveled under the ostensible purpose of looking 
out for a school. I had to be very cautious in making my 
inquiries, and had, without any particular desire on my part, 



38 

to make the acquaintance of notorious rebels, the better to 
effect my real design, to secure me from suspicion. 

One morning I took breakfast with one of this class ; he 
was the most hot-headed fire-eater I had met with. I hu- 
mored the old fanatic to his heart's content; sung him a rebel 
song, cursing the "damned Yankees" in general, and the 
abolitionists in particular; eat a good warm breakfast, "free 
gratis," and departed, with many a hearty good wish for my 
success and prosperity. I next called, at the suggestion of 
my host, on a member of the rebel legislature, which sat at 
Shrevesport, who had the day before returned home, to make 
inquiries whether the legislature had made any provisions 
for free schools, &c; and after a half hour's conversation 
with him on the state of affairs in general, and of schools in 
particular, I left him, he directing me to call upon Colonel 
Ash; that a teacher was wanted in his settlement. I did 
call, or rather had to call, lest my not doing so might create 
suspicion. The colonel was not at home; his house was 
presided over by an elder brother, who was a cripple, having 
lost a leg. They were at dinner when I called, and when 
they got through they invited me to the table, which invitation 
I gladly accepted. After telling my business I found they had 
a school in full blast, which I was heartily glad to hear, 
though apparently very sorry for my disappointment. To 
turn the subject from myself and the school business, seeing 
they were of the aristocracy, and to flatter them all I could 
without their being aware of the true cause for my doing so, 
I asked the old gentleman whether he was in lineal descent 
connected with the Ashes of Cape Fear, North Carolina, of 
Revolutionary memory ? He replied that Colonel Ashe of 
Cape Fear was his uncle or grand-uncle, or some near rela- 
tive, I do not remember which. I then made a draft on my 
Revolutionary lore for the incidents connected with Colonel 
Ashe and Governor Martin, of North Carolina, and after dis- 
playing my pedantry by eulogizing the valor and patriotism 
of the Ashes in general, and of his honored kinsman in par- 
ticular, I left the house, with all the school business infor- 
mation they could give me, and their hearty good wishes for 
my success. 

The weather continued very cold for this latitude; it 
snowed, and the earth froze. I came to an old gentleman's 
house ; he was out on the roadside. I asked him if there was 
a house a couple of miles ahead on the road, where I could 
stay ail night. He answered "None, except that of some colored 
people." I told him I did not wish to put up at such places 



39 

if I could help myself. He invited me to stay with him ; that. 
I was welcome, if I could put up with such fare as he had. 
I gladly accepted his hospitality, especially as it was getting 
toward the cool of the evening, and I being thinly clad. He 
treated me very kindly, and, as I professed to be a good rebel, 
I passed the night till bedtime in cheerful converse " on the 
state of the nation." The war was the chief subject ot con- 
versation, and as a gentleman and his daughter from Wash- 
ington happened to drop in soon after my arrival, the merits 
and demerits of the belligerents were discussed with kind 
good humor, especially as all of us were, for the time being 
at least, of the same politics. The madam took occasion to 
remark that Lincoln was the best president we ever had ; 
that he made all the women of the South industrious; " God 
bless his soul, I hope he may be hanged; ha, ha, ha." 
We all, as a matter of course, joined in the laugh, and before 
retiring the "Throne of Mercy" was invoked for innumera- 
ble blessings to be poured out on the holy cause of the 
Confederacy. 

On the following morning, February 19, the ground was 
frozen ; hot water had to be poured on the faucets of the 
cistern to get water. I started on my way towards Port 
Hudson. I learned from some colored men, who kept a 
blacksmith shop, that a rebel picket was at Peek's ferry, on 
the Atchafalaya river, and that no person would be let pass 
who had not good papers, or whom Peek would not recom- 
mend. It was seventeen miles from where the roads forked 
to Morgan's ferry, and ten miles through the swamp. When 
I got to the forks of the road, I made inquiries of a black- 
smith, whd> kept a shop there, what the prospect was of 
getting a school on the other side of the river, about Bayou 
Fordoche. He told me I need not go there for that purpose, 
that the citizens had nearly all abandoned the county. So 
I dropped my character as schoolmaster, and assumed that 
of a gardner. I traveled through the swamp, sometimes 
knee-deep in mud and water, for a quarter ot a mile at a time. 
I thought several times my toes would freeze, and at several 
sloughs I had to strip and wade ; this took me a long time 
to get through the swamp. When I got to the river I found 
Morgan's ferry was broken up, but I was informed a mile 
further down, that I could cross at Mr. Burton's. He had 
a kind of boat— half ferry and half batteau. I called at the 
house, and the old gentleman came out; he was a venerable 
looking man, with a countenance denoting intelligence and 
good nature. I anticipated having some difficulty in getting 



40 

put over the river. I told him my business ; that I wanted 
to cross the river to go over on the Fordoche, and having 
a staff in my hand about four feet long, I presented myself 
before hiui as a decrepit old man ; for, from my then forlorn 
appearance and gray beard, I passed for being ten years 
older than I really was, and, as I before remarked, having 
changed my ostensible profession from a pedagogue to a 
horticulturist, I put on my broadest Irish brogue - , so it would 
be hard to tell but that I had just vegitated from the Emerald 
Isle. The old gentleman told me that he had orders from 
the military to put no. one over that he did not know, or was 
not recommended to him. I told him had I known that, 
(naming the old gentleman with whom I stayed the night 
before,) that he would have given me a " bit of paper" to 
him, but he did not tell me that I would have any trouble in 
crossing the river ; and I wound up by saying that I did not 
see why anybody could object to crossing such a poor old 
man as I was. He then relied, "Well, I don't think so 
either." So, calling a couple of the "boys," he told them to 
put me over; the ferriage for a footman being $2, Confederate 
money. As the negroes were ferrying me over, I made 
inquiries of them if any Confederates were stationed in the 
neighborhood. They iiabrmed.nie that there was a picket at 
Catlin's house on the BayouhFordoche, which was five miles 
from the ferry ; and they gave me particular directions how 
I should know when I came within half a mile of the place, 
by the number of bridges on the road, and of a plantation, 
and a right-hand road. I understood the topography of the 
country from my knowledge of its geography, and when I 
came to the forks of the road I made another "flank move- 
ment," which was nearly as hard upon me as the swamp I 
had just crossed. I took through the woods and old fields, 
through brush and brier, water and mire, for about three 
miles. I had sometimes to stop fifteen minutes at a time 
to pick off the cockle burs which stuck to my clothes. I at 
last struck the Fordoche, by following an old trail, at a foot- 
log ; the moon was past the first quarter, and shone all night. 
I had not tasted food since sunrise, and being compelled to 
keep my broken arm in my coat sleeve, to avoid detection, 
I suffered a great deal of pain from my fractured limb. I 
surrounded every house on the road till past bedtime, lest 
I might be challenged and taken up again as a " suspicious 
character." About eleven o'clock at night I saw a light in a 
negro's cabin ; I went up and peeped through the logs of 
the hut, making no noise till I found who its occupants were. 



41 

I found a negro in bed, with his hand badly cut by being 
caught in a gin stand while ginning cotton, and a woman 
sitting up with him. I could trust the blacks, knowing well 
their feelings about the war, so I asked them if they saw any 
rebels about. They informed me that that same evening a 
great many passed up, and were staying about two miles back 
the road I had come. They were at a house at one side of the 
bayou, and I passed on the other; here was a narrow escape. 
The negroes told me they traveled in a hurry ; that they had a 
fight the day before with a Yankee picket on the Gross Tete 
bayou. Being very hungry, I asked them for something to 
eat; I got a piece of corn bread and a joint of the backbone 
of a shoat. I devoured it in a hurry, and left the vicinity, 
not choosing to make any further acquaintance with the 
" chivalry" than I could possibly help. 

I had not traveled a mile when I heard a noise as if it 
were a carriage of some sort, and, hiding in the bushes by 
the roadside till it passed, I saw it was a negro driving an ox- 
cart. I traveled a little further, and, keeping in the shade 
of the timber, I could see a person a good way off without 
being seen myself, the moon shining brightly, and it freez- 
ing. I observed a man walking toward me. Concealing 
myself in the bushes till he came opposite me, I discovered 
he was a stalwart negro, and, having no fear as regards this 
" species of chattel," I made myself known to him, and briefly 
told him where I was going. He gave me directions how to 
go to False river, and told me when I got to where the For- 
doche ran into Gross Tete bayou to take to the left, cross a 
bridge, and I need not be afraid of meeting any rebels on 
the route ; so, if I got two miles further without meeting an 
enemy, I would be out of danger, He had with him a pint 
bottle of Louisiana rum, and he gave me a couple of drinks, 
which I needed very much, as I was greatly exhausted. I 
met with no difficulty till about two hours before day, when 
I came to a bayou which ran into Gross Tete bayou. ISTot 
finding either bridge or boat, I called at a house, though 
very loth to do so, and made inquiry how to cross. The man 
was a Dutchman, and spoke such broken English that I could 
hardly understand him, and in trying to follow his directions 
I got into the woods. I had to return the way I went, and 
wake him up again. He then went with me to the bayou, 
where he had a boat, and ferried me over. I had no more 
difficulty in finding the way till I got to a large plantation 
on False river, about ten miles from Port Hudson. I called 
at the house and asked the servant if I could get breakfast. 



42 

She went up stairs and made the inquiry, and the answer 
which she brought me was, " Massa will be down directly." 
"Massa" came down in about a half hour; a tall, gaunt, 
grisly-looking personage of the " lousy aristocracy." He 
questioned me rather impertinently, which I suppose he 
thought my uncouth appearance warranted him to do ; and, 
maintaining my character as a gardener, I did not disabuse 
him of the apparent contempt I saw he viewed me with. His 
name was Hcbert. He asked me where I was from, where 
I was going, and what occupation I followed ; and I had to 
answer his several inquiries before he would tell me whether 
or no he would let me have my breakfast. I told him I was 
from the Fordoche, that I was looking for work, and that I 
was a gardener. After an hour or so breakfast was ready. 
I saw a lady as if in the act of coming down stairs, but she, 
getting a glimpse of me, saw directly by my habiliments 
that I was not a fit person to sit at the same table with her 
ladyship. She, no doubt, .was too much of an aristocrat to 
be seen at table with a plebeian. 

I left my host to think what he pleased about me, and bent 
my course to Port Hudson, the goal of my safety. It was 
about one o'clock p. m. when I got opposite Port Hudson, 
tired and weary. My energies seemed to flag as I drew near 
on the opposite bank of the river ; but when I saw the brave 
old flag, the " Stars and Stripes," floating over what the 
rebels once thought " impregnable Port Hudson," my heart 
expanded with joy at beholding the good old flag I had not 
seen for years, and to get within the protection of whose folds 
I had endured so many hardships and passed through so 
many dangers. When I got to Port Hudson I had, m a 
little over a day and a night, traveled fifty-two miles on one 
meal. 



CHAPTER VI. 



" I pray, sir, deal with me in misery- 
Like one that may himself be miserable ; 
Insult not too much upon my wretchedness, 
The noble minds still will not when they can." 

I here subscribed to the " Iron-clad," and got transporta- 
tion to New Orleans. I was anxious to get to Franklin and 



43 

inform the commanding officer there of the " situation" in 
his front. "When I got to New Orleans, I saw in the morning 
paper an account of a meeting of the Texas refugees and a 
synopsis of the speech of General A. J. Hamilton, military 
governor of Texas. I found him at the City Hotel, and on 
presenting him my card he looked at me and inquired : "Are 
you the man ?" I was a woful looking specimen of hu- 
manity — 

" My hat with half the crown heat in, 
My trowserloons not worth a pin, 
My coat deficient of a skirt, 
And with, at best, but half a shirt." 

The general asked me, "Are you without means?" I an- 
swered, truly, " I have not a cent in the world." He gave 
me twenty dollars with which to replenish my wardrobe, I 
went to the store of the " King of Shirts," (Moody's,) and 
stated to one of the clerks that I was a refugee from Texas, 
and had just received some money from General Hamilton, 
and requested him not to extort on me. Finding I was from 
Texas, he asked me if I knew any persons by the name of 
Swearingen. I told him I did ; that I had a brother-in-law 
of that name ; that he came to New Orleans about a year 
and a half ago ; and, after I described him, he told me he 
knew where he was, and that he would write to him. Hav- 
ing dispatched a note to him, giving him my address — " The 
Soldiers' Home," New Orleans — on the third day he was 
down to see me. He bought me a suit of clothes and gave 
me some money to meet my expenses while in the city. 

I then had a brief narrative of my adventures published 
in the New Orleans Times. Governor Wells saw it, and as 
there were several refugees from the Calcasieu at New Or- 
leans who knew me, and among them the notorious " Jay- 
hawker," Dr. Dudly, the governor was at no loss to find me 
out, expressing his great joy at my almost miraculous escape. 
He gave me a letter of introduction to General Banks. I 
was introduced to General Stone, chief of Banks' staff, and 
after briefly telling him all that was necessary in such a case, 
he sent me to report to General Franklin, commander of the 
19th # army corps, at Franklin on Bayou Teche. 

I went to Franklin and reported to the general. As I 
was in the provost marshal's office one day, who should step 
in but Dr. Hubbard, the same who betrayed me to Major 
Blair. I knew him as soon as I cast my eyes on him, and 
he recognized me. I riveted my eyes on him, but he could 
not stand my scrutiny; he turned his face from me every 



44 

time I looked at him. I wrote at the desk a brief note, ad- 
dressed to the provost marshal, asking him who that officer 
was, telling him he was the doctor who, on the 16th of Janu- 
ary last, betrayed me at New Iberia to the rebels ; telling the 
provost marshal I did not now care to have any proceedings 
instituted against him, as I was now in safety, but I wished 
to expose his treachery. He belonged to the 165th N. Y. 
V., or 2d regiment, Duryea Zouaves. 

When the army started for Alexandria, I was sent by 
General Franklin in the advance, with the first brigade of 
cavalry. When we got to Cheneyville, within about thirty 
miles of Alexandria, we learned that General A. J. Smith, 
with the 16th army corps, had taken Fort De Russe, on the 
Red river, and that Taylor's army passed out between Alex- 
andria and Cheneyville three days before we got there. Had 
General Franklin known this, and the 19th army corps left 
Franklin three days sooner, so as to meet the gunboats and 
the 16th army corps at Alexandria, Taylor and his whole 
army would doubtless have been captured. 

I was but a few days in Alexandria when I saw, coming in 
from the Calcasieu district, several of my old Union friends, 
and a good sprinkling of rebels, to take the oath of allegi- 
ance. The latter did not regard the oath as binding on their 
consciences, that is, if they ever possessed such an article ; 
for, when Banks evacuated Alexandria they all went back to 
the rebels. Not the last nor least important . among them 
was Louis Texada, who was the "life and blood of the con- 
spiracy" in that section, and who afterwards accepted a com- 
mission as captain in the reserve corps of the Confederate 
army. Those double-distilled traitors are now claiming the 
rights of citizenship, and voted at the election on the 6th of 
November, 1865, under the President's proclamation of the 
8th of December, 1863. 

As Governor Wells was born and raised in Rapides parish, 
he knows them all ; and by comparing the registry of the 
voters with their property estimate from the tax book of 
1861, he can see at a glance those who were exempted by 
the President's proclamation of May 19, 1865, as being worth 
over $20,000, and those who took the oath in April and 
May, 1864, and since aided and assisted " willfully" in the 
rebellion ; and as his new-fangled friends whom he appointed 
to office in preference to his old Union friends, who stood by 
him when " Bloody Bob " and Captain Todd were hunting 
him in the swamps, as well as the other " Jayhawkers," 
voted against him and for Allen, after they, in their public 



45 

assemblies, promised to give Mm their " cordial support," 
will lie now see justice meted out to them as their crimes 
deserve? I have my doubts but that there was at least one- 
third of those who voted in Rapides parish who never took the 
oath of allegiance; and I further doubt but that more than 
half the planters on the river and bayous are under the ban of 
the President's proclamation of May 19, 1865, on account of 
their being worth upwards of $20,000, and unpardoned by 
the President, for "willingly" aiding and assisting the re- 
bellion. Come, Governor Wells, you must see to this, and 
face the music whether you will or no; for this " little book" 
will travel further, and be read by more than ever read your 
fine letters to President Johnson. 

Having digressed from the narrative of my personal his- 
tory, in order to explain some incidents connected with the 
time Banks was in Alexandria, I will now take up the thread 
of my discourse, and reserve for the last chapter the digres- 
sions which, if in their order of date, would be scattered 
through this narrative in rather a desultory manner. 

It was not many days after I reached Alexandria that the 
news was brought in of the capture of Irhe Second Louisiana 
(rebel) cavalry, and of their being on the march to Alexan- 
dria. I had a great anxiety to see if my old friend, Major J. 
D. Blair, was among the prisoners captured. As the column 
was wheeled round the rear of the court house, I hurried to 
its head and asked one of the Federal officers if Major Blair 
was among the captives ; and, upon being answered in the 
affirmative; he called out for Colonel Blair, he having been 
promoted to lieutenant colonel since I had the honor of his 
acquaintance. The major, as I still called him, stepped 
to the front when called, the Federal officer remarking, 
" Colonel Blair, here is a gentleman who wishes to see you." 
I took hold of his hand; I intended to have revenge, and I 
had it; I said, "Major Blair, how do you do?" he bowed, 
and answered, " How do you do, sir ?" " Major," said I, 
" don't you know me?" "No, sir," with another bow, "I do 
not," "What!" said I, "you do not know me!" "Upon my 
word I do not, sir." "Don't you know J *he old man, John 
O'Brien, whom you captured last January at New Iberia?" 
"Oh!" he replied, grasping my hand and shaking it very 
cordially; "how do you do, sir? how do you do, sir? I'm 
glad to see you." I answered, "I am well, and more than 
ordinarily glad to see you ; " that my name was O'Brien then, 
but my name was Haynes now. At this his countenance 
fell, and assumed an ashy paleness, and I exclaimed, I own 



46 

with some asperity in my tone and gestures, "Major Blair, 
do you not remember, when you captured me, how you had 
the bandages torn off my arm, as though I were a dog?" He 
answered, almost inaudibly, " Yes," and hung down his head, 

"For he felt humbled, and humiliation 
Is sometimes good for people in his station." 

I never saw a man so cut up. His officers standing round 
him looked the picture of despair, as the Federal officers and 
soldiers hissed him in a rage for his barbarity. As soon as 
there was silence I spoke to him, pointing my finger at him, 
and said, " Major Blair, let this be a caution to you hereafter. 
Remember the fortunes of war. I was your prisoner then, 
you are my prisoner now ; should you have the good fortune 
to get back to your people, and should you ever capture a 
prisoner, treat him kindly." He replied, more audibly, "Yes, 
sir; yes, sir." As I turned away the Federals set up a loud 
shout, officers and men, upon seeing the kind of revenge I had 
taken of him. Many of the Federals said to me, " kill him ;" 
and some were officers high in rank. I replied, " No, I am 
revenged; Major Blair is a man of education and refine- 
ment; that I believed that when he committed the act of 
barbarity on me he was under the influence of liquor ; that 
from the castigation I gave him, and the apparent shame 
manifested in his countenance, I hoped it would make him a 
wiser and a better man. 

I now received from General Banks a commission to raise 
a company of cavalry, which was called the First regiment 
of Louisiana independent scouts, and A. K. Bevers was 
appointed my first lieutenant. I recruited in Alexandria 
from the Union men, who came in from the west of Rapide3 
parish and Calcasieu, about twenty men, and went home to 
get more recruits. It was five months since I was first cap- 
tured, and when I got home, those who hunted me down 
like a wolf took to the woods in their turn, expecting if I 
should capture them that I would treat them as they would, 
or as they did, treat me ; but they were sadly mistaken, for 
they only judged me by the standard of their own wicked 
hearts. My lieutenant lived in Calcasieu parish, about 
thirty miles southwest of me. I sent him home to collect 
the conscripts, and named a certain day and place for them 
to meet me. When I got to the place of the rendezvous, 
which was a creek swamp, about eighty men had gathered 
before sundown. Next morning I made a short speech to 
them, and when I closed the few remarks I had to make, I 
proposed that all who wished to join the scouts would step 



47 

three paces to tlie front. About sixty volunteered, and form- 
ing them in a semi-circle I swore them into the United States 
army, to serve during military operations ine Wstern Louis- 
iana and Eastern Texas; 

One third of them had no horses, for the rebels Ivey, 
Smart, and "Bloody Bob" had captured them; many were 
entirely barefooted, and some had scarcely clothing to cover 
their nakedness. These men had been hunted for the last 
two years by the rebels, to make them go to the war, and 
many a man had been killed previous to the time I was first 
captured, and double as many since. They hunted them 
with blood-hounds, which were trained to run negroes in 
"seeesh times." A man by the name of Shannon, who was 
afterwards the orderly of my company, was hunted down by 
dogs belonging to Joseph Chambers of Rapides parish, after 
a race often miles, when he took a to tree to save himself from 
being torn to pieces. I afterwards captured two of those 
dogs and carried one to New Orleans, having lost the other 
on the route. 

Those who were on foot I sent directly to my house ; and 
as most of them could make brogans, I told those who 
were barefooted to hasten to my house and make themselves 
shoes out of some leather I had procured, while with the 
mounted men I went in search of horses. Horses were very 
scarce, as the rebels captured most of the horses belonging 
to the Union men, and when Banks' army came to Alexan- 
dria the rebels ran their horses off; I mean those who did not 
take the oath of allegiance. So I had to borrow of the Union 
men who had a spare horse, and was to return them after I 
got the men to Alexandria. I was gone but ten days from 
the day I left Alexandria till I returned, when I had mustered 
into the United States service one hundred and eighteen 
men, rank and file. 

On the north of Red river, Captains Corley, Hawthorne, 
and Willet, were making up companies. Dudley, though he 
had his orders before he left New Orleans, and got about 
twenty recruits then, might, if he had a mind, have made 
up his company with the advantage of the start he had of 
me; but instead of recruiting, he went about the _ country 
robbing trunks, and doing all manner of mischief, till finally 
General Grover suspended him from his command and drove 
him out of the battalion. The Union men on the north of 
Red river were not as anxious to join as those on the south 
side ; perhaps it was because they did not suffer as heavily 
the persecutions which we had suffered. To encourage them 



48 

to enlist, Lieutenant Governor Wells made a speech to them 
at Pineville, opposite Alexandria, promising them $300 
bounty each. He also told me to tell the Union men that 
they should have $300 bounty each ; but the governor did 
not fulfill his promise, though he might have easily accom- 
plished it through the legislature assembled at New Orleans 
in 1864, the senate of which he presided over till March, 
•±, 1865, when lie became governor of Louisiana. Though 
the governor forgot the scouts, he did not forget himself nor 
his sons nor his sons-in-law, for he and they have all fat 
offices, though they never took up arms for the United States 
Government ; though I and my two sons were in the ser- 
vice, and losing my wife and one of my children, and having 
lost everything I had in the world ; though profusely prod- 
igal in his executive appointments of his rebel enemies to 
office, he never thought of me, nor do I know of but one of 
the scouts to whom he gave an ofiice, and that was not much 
of one. 

When the army returned, after the repulse at Sabine Cross 
Roads, we could not go out and see to our families and carry 
them supplies; nothing had been raised in the country in the 
line of breadstuff's during the past three years. We could 
not get permission to go outside the lines after we were 
mustered into the service. My wife started with her teams 
and got as far as Polk's bridge, on Bayou Boeuf, when she 
was stopped by the rebels and plundered of everything she 
bad. 

The rebel stook a fancy to Mrs. Nichols, whom I mentioned 
in the first chapter of this narrative. She claimed the bag- 
gage as her's; but in search Vug my trunks they found some 
papers with my name on them, and also my daguerreotype. 
Captain Stafford — the same who was with Major Blair when 
I was captured at New Ibeiia, and with whom I conversed 
when a prisoner at Vermillionville — took my daguerreotype 
and put it in his pocket, stating that with it he could identify 
me, and if he ever caught me he would kill me. Had he 
known I was old " John O'Brien," he would have had no need 
of my daguerreotype. I have been informed that he denies 
all this, and says that it was Bob Martin or Bill Ivey. Well, 
Mr. Stafford, you need not father any more on those villains; 
they have to carry a heavy load of their own wicked deeds 
to hell, without throwing your mite on their shoulders. Be 
sides, my wife knew "Bloody Bob " and " Bloody Bob" as 
well, or, perhaps, better than you do. She had many an 
opportunity of forming their acquaintance by their frequent 



49 

visits to my house without an invitation. Besides, there are 
four living witnesses yet, who know them as well as my 
wife, and who state they heard your name called, and de- 
scribe you much better — so as you could be identified — than 
my daguerreotype does me, which likeness was taken nine 
years ago ; for the wear and tear of nine years have made a 
great alteration in my mien and form; so, if you should 
ever wish to identify me, you have only to brush up your 
memory a little, and see if you can recollect what sort of a 
species of humanity you had for four weeks in Vermillion 
jail, in January and February, 1864, in the person of "Old 
John O'Brien." Were I vindictive, I could have been re- 
venged on you. I might, on more than one occasion, have 
burned your plantation on the Red river, especially when 
the army was on the retreat from Alexandria, and you 
would have been none the wiser as to who was the incen- 
diary. 



CHAPTER VII. 



" How beautiful in death 

The warrior's corpse appears — 
Embalmed by fond affection's breath, 
And bath'd in woman's tears." 

The 12th of May, 1864, is a clay memorable in the history 
of Alexandria. The fleet and land forces had marching 
orders, and before the fleet sailed the town was discovered 
on fire. The boats dropped down the river, about a mile 
from the town, to prevent any accidents happening from the 
burning town. I rode into town that evening, to see my 
family before we marched. The town was on fire, and 
nearly burned — all the front portion of it, lying on the river. 
Eo account could be given of who set it on fire. It was a 
very calm day, the flames could not spread across a single 
street, so the burning must have been the work of several 
persons. 

The scouts were stationed at Mrs. Flowers', about seven miles 
south of Alexandria. A Dutch Jew of the First Louisiana 
cavalry was appointed major over us. His name was Henry 
4 



50 

F. Williamson. I mention his name here from the fact that 
he was as great a tyrant and scoundrel as ever had command 
of a troop of soldiers. His tyranny, and the fact of the 
scouts not being let out to get their families out of Bloody 
Bob's reach, so incensed them that, the night before we 
marched, twenty-two of my company deserted, and made 
their way back to the swamps. 

As we passed Governor Moor's house, it and his sugar- 
houses were on fire. We halted at Judge Gervis Baillio's, on 
account of some firing on our rear. We stopped here about 
a half an hour. Mrs. Baillio came to me, apparently much 
alarmed, and said, " Captain Haynes, for God's sake place a 
guard around my house and quarters; they are going to 
burn us up ! " I did so, and saved the house and premises, 
though I knew Jud are Baillio had then three sons in the rebel 
army. I saw no justice nor expediency in the destruction ot 
private property, where it serves no practical good and is 
without any military necessity — though, a short time before, 
the rebels burned my house and premises. 

We had no fighting till we got to Marksville. We heard 
cannonading at Mansura, a little village three miles south 
of Marksville. The rebel scouts appeared on the roar, and 
the scouts were ordered to the "front," which honorable 
though dangerous post we kept till we got to Atchafalaya 
river. I lost two men ; and one was missing. The scouts 
had the honor of saving one of General Mower's batteries 
the last day of the fight; for, as the rebels made a fiank 
movement to the right, unperceived, in the swamp, the scouts 
simultaneously made a flank movement to the left, and out- 
flanked the rebel flankers. I had the rebel's movements 
related to me a feAv days ago by a young man who was in 
the fight. He was, he said, at the battles of Sabine Cross 
Roads and Mansfield; and so far as he could judge — and 
he said he Was in the hottest of the fights at the two latter 
places — the fight at Yellow bayou, on the last da}-, was the 
hottest of any he had been in. He said all his company but 
six men, were killed or captured ; he made his escape. Gen- 
eral A. J. Smith appeared everywhere; he appeared to pos- 
sess the power of ubiquity. 

A bridge of boats was now formed across the river, and 
all the troops of each arm of the service crossed over in 
Bafety. I had been unwell for several days, and the morn- 
ing after we crossed the Atchafalaya river I was taken seri- 
ously ill with the typhoid malaria and diarrhea, and was put 
on board a transport and taken to the St. James hospital, 



51 

New Orleans. Rest and the scientific treatment of Dr. Lee, 
who had charge of the ward in which I had been placed, 
soon restored me to health and vigor; and as the state of the 
mind has a tendency to either depress or enliven the body, 
my mind was relieved from a load of anxiety by a note 
from my brother-in-law, Mr. E. A. Swearingen, informing 
me that he was down-stairs and wished to see me. I went 
down from my room, and was happy to be informed that my 
family was in the city, but the children were in indifferent 
health, from the diarrhea, which they, as well as mostly all 
the refugees, had taken at Alexandria. 

During the last four weeks that the troops stayed at Alex- 
andria it rained but one or two showers. The town being 
small, and no water fit to drink but cistern water, on account 
of the number of troops, citizens, and refugees, these reser- 
voirs soon failed; and as the well water could not be drank 
at all, we had to use the water of the Red river, which, at 
best, is hardly lit for a brute, and now it had become almost 
putrid from the dead carcasses of mules and horses, and the 
offal of slaughtered cattle and other filth. A few days after 
hearing from my wife and little children, I received a note 
from one of my sons, informing me that they and my quar- 
termaster sergeant, Brooks, were at the barracks hospital, 
New Orleans. They were taken with the diarrhea at Alex- 
andria, and sent to New Orleans on board a transport. 

The situation of my family rendered it necessary that I 
should be with them, as they were in a strange place, and 
entirely dependent on the rations furnished to refugees for 
their support. Being unused to such fare, they would have 
suffered severely had it not been i'or the timely aid of Mr. 
Swearnigen, my brother-in-law. I now, through the partial 
kindness of Surgeon Lee, obtained my discharge from the 
hospital, though, indeed, I was far from being in a fit con- 
dilion to " report for duty." But I believed I should get 
along better with my family than to remain in the hospital 
under a mental pressure from the anxiety I felt for my boys, 
as well as my wife and small children, and especially as 
Surgeon Lee furnished me with medicine to take at home. 
I now went to the barracks hospital to see my boys, and I 
found four more of my company there sick. My sons and 
sergeant were convalescent, and in a few clays I obtained 
their discharge also, through the same process of reasoning 
with the surgeon in charge. 

The scouts crossed the Mississippi at the Stock Landing. 
Colonel Keily of the Second Louisiana cavalry sent for me, 



52 

having previously seen Captain Corl'ey and Hawthorne, to 
have us agree to be temporarily attached to his regiment. 
Colonel Keily said that he was informed that the War De- 
partment would not allow any organized detachments inde- 
pendent of the regular line of volunteers, &c. I went with 
him, Major Fontain, Captains Corley and Hawthorne, and 
Lieutenant Bevers to see General Dwight, chief of stall". 
Dwight told us the same thing, and remarked that the War 
Department had more men than they needed, &c. This he 
must have known to be a false statement, for it was not six 
months afterwards when there was a call for 300,000 more 
men. He said the scouts could not get pay nor clothing if 
they could not agree to be attached to some regiment, and 
in doing so they would not lose their organization nor char- 
acter as scouts, to serve only for the section of country they 
enlisted for; which was during military operations in Western 
Louisiana and Eastern Texas. Under these statements, and 
believing them made by General Dwight in good faith, I 
agreed to the proposal, with the proviso that Major William- 
son should be removed from command of the scouts. 

As soon as I gave my assent, a special order was issued 
attaching the battalion to the Second Louisiana cavaliy. 
The scouts were ordered to Fassman's pass, and Major 
Williamson retained, contrary to my express agreement with 
General Dwight. I told Dwight of Major Williamson's say- 
ing, respecting the battle of Sabine Cross Roads, that he did 
" not care a damn who whipped — the North or the South;" 
and that I did not wish to serve under him. Williamson 
had a grudge against me for this, besides his natural dispo- 
sition as a tyrant. When they had us fastened in their 
clutches, and in, as it were, a jail to the scouts, they wanted 
the officers to certify to the pay-roll of the scouts who were 
in the hospitals ; that the said pay-roll was a true»record from 
the company's books of company, of the Second Louis- 
iana cavalry. This I refused to do, and so did Captain Corley 
and Hawthorne; nor could we do so without certifying to a 
falsehood. We jointly sent a note to General Dwight, in the 
regular way, of this fact, and next day we were placed under 
arrest; and ten days afterwards we received an honorable 
discharge as " being too old to learn the duties of officers." 

The scouts were now turned over to the Second Louisiana 

cavalry, and a pack of Dutch Jews, for the most part, appointed 

in our stead ; but their triumph was but short-lived, for I 

had a letter dispatched to the Secretary of War, with a brief 

: ement of our case, that we were willing to fulfill our 



53 

contract with the Government ; and instead of the officers 
being too old to learn the duties of officers, the oldest of 
them were but middle-aged men. In the fall following, an 
order was received from the War Department disbanding 
the scouts, and consolidating the Second Louisiana cavalry 
with the First Louisiana cavalry; and so Col. Keily, Major 
Fontain, and Major AVilliamson were mustered out of service. 
When Dick Taylor had regained control in the Red river 
district, he issued an order requiring the families of all the 
scouts and Union men to be sent inside the Federal lines, 
their property confiscated, and their houses burned. Had 
Dick Taylor no other sins to account for, (God knows he had 
enough for one, yea, for a score of bad men to account for,) 
this alone would be enough to make — 

" Hell receive him, riveted in chains; 
Damned to the hottest focus of its flames." 

The very time the scouts were in their greatest trouble, 
their families came; some to Natchez, Baton Rouge, and 
New Orleans. The refugee houses were chocked-full of these 
poor, sickly, emaciated wretches; women and children, half 
naked and barefooted, had to travel on foot, from two to four 
hundred miles, to obey the mandate of this hell-hound of 
iniquity. And so the hegira of these wretched creatures 
continued, until Governor Allen put a stop to the tiger's rage ; 
for General Smith, co-operating with Governor Allen, issued 
an order to stop the expatriation and burning of the Unioa 
men's houses. But this did the scouts no good on the south 
side of Red river ; for " Bloody Bob," Ivey, the Smarts, 
Dave Paul, Jew Benjamin and his " Christ-killers," from 
Alexandria, were on ka*td as soon as the Federals were out 
of the way ; and they did the work of destruction with 
celerity and cheerfulness. Not a Union man that stayed at 
home, and was caught, but was "shot with bullets as thick 
as they could stick in him," as was the usual phrase of those 
villains when they intended to kill a man. And, strange to 
toll, when the Federals came to Alexandria, after the surren- 
der, not one of those wretches were arrested; nor would 
General Hawkins have anything to do with them. They 
and their accomplices are at home, cursing the " damned 
Yankees" at their pleasure, and enjoying the fruits of their 
bloody deeds, while the returned refuges are literally starv- 
ing. 



54 

CHAPTER VIII. 



■' 0, beauteous peace ! 
Sweet union of a State ! what else but thou 
Gives safety, strength, and glory to a people !" 

The convention of 1864 having completed its labors and 
brought forth the constitution, which has been harped upon 
by the " unterrified" and commented on with so much acri- 
mony, a legislature had then to be formed, according to its 
provisions, to make laws to suit the exigencies of the times. 
So every parish which was under the Federal protection 
had to be represented if possible. Lieutenant Governor 
Wells was at the time acting as governor, and as I had not 
lost caste with him then, or perhaps rather, as he could find 
no person else who would venture within the vicinity of Col- 
onel Harrison's " man hunters," gave me the appointment 
of "sheriff of Madison parish." I knew Madison to be a 
rich .parish, and thought I would realize out of the office 
enough to start me to housekeeping. But 0, Moses ! 1 
never was so badly fooled in my life, for the sheriffalty proved 
an egg shell without meat ; for when I got to Milliken's Bend 
I found, to my great mortification, the parish depleted of^its 
inhabitants. Those who did not go into the rebel army, 
abandoned the parish, except here and there a two-faced, 
one-sided rebel, who was smart at stealing cotton and swear- 
ing to lies, to get supplies to furnish the guerrilla captains — 
Dishroom, Hedricks, and Lusk, and their companies — from 
the treasury department at Vicksburg. An occasional cop- 
perhead Yankee would crawl in, such as ex-Captain Dew- 
eese, and some minor small fry, as E. D. Richardson and 
Charley Swan. I verily believe these scoundrels would swear 
the legs off a pot, if they could get a pound of cotton each 
for them. Here I was with my family, and with nothing 
else but the little stock of provisions I drew at New Orleans 
from the post commissary; and as my family was sick and 
could not eat Government rations, 1 had to- supply them from 
the market, which I did as long as the money which my 
wife got from her brother lasted; and two hundred dollars, 
which I received for a couple of yokes of steers, I loaned to a 
widow at Alexandria to bring her along. 

I could not now be considered a refugee; I was "sheriff 



55 

of Madison parish," and, therefore, could not draw rations, 
unless, as Colonel Young said, I would go to Vicksburg to 
the refugee house or go North, and he would send me there. 
Having lived in the South twenty-eight years, my wife and 
children born in the South, and not having means to pur- 
chase clothing sufficient to protect us from the inclemency 
by day, nor bed clothing to keep us warm by night, in a 
Northern climate ; my children sick, (I lost one in New Or- 
leans,) my oldest son an invalid on furlough, my own right 
arm broken, and broken so close to the shoulder joint that 
if I had been raised to manual labor, I was now unable to 
perform it. So here I was, 

" Like patience on a monument smiling at grief." 

Colonel Young recommended me to Col. Samuel Thomas, 
provost marshal general of freedmen for the district of 
v icksburg, to be appointed assistant provost marshal of freed- 
men for Madison parish. I went to Vicksburg and showed 
the colonel my "papers," which were satisfactory enough. 
He gave me the appointment, but, like the sheriff's office, it 
proved equally as abortive. When I asked Colonel Thomas 
how I was to get supplies for my family, he said the com- 
mander of the post at Milliken's Bend would let me have 
rations. Colonel Bryant told me he could not, that Colonel 
Thomas should have given me an order on one of his com- 
missaries. I wrote this reply to Thomas; he informed me 
he had to " certify on honor " that the rations issued were 
for contrabands or officers, and as I " was-not an officer then" 
he could not let me have rations. There was no stipend 
attached to the office, nor was I allowed to charge any fees for 
auditing the books and accounts, quarterly, between the lessees 
and the freedmen; so I was going to resign an office that 
would not furnish me with supplies, fees, nor stipend. How 
I was to live I did not know. 

The lessees seeing that I was active in suppressing crimes 
and misdemeanors in their neighborhood, that I was very 
useful to them, much more so than the whole regiment of 
the 46th TJ. S. colored infantry, offered me ten dollars a 
month each, to visit their plantations once a week and rec- 
tify the refractory negroes, and hunt up the mules and horses 
which the loose darkies were continually stealing. I now 
was busily employed, and indefatigable in my endeavors to 
maintain law and order in the settlement, and made several 
arrests of notorious rascals, who were killing cattle and steal- 
ing hogs and mules from the lessees, and sent them to Vicks- 
burg to Captain Curtis, the provost marshal. My proceed- 



56 

ings were satisfactory enough with Captain Curtis, for in the 
ease of every able-bodied man who was accused of a crime, 
the captain would tell him he would send him to the Alton 
penitentiary during the war, or gave him his choice to go in 
the army; and as Massachusetts had sent her delegates to 
the rebellious States to enlist men to fill her quota for the 
army, they were offering $350 bounty for every recruit they 
could get; and the captain, to' "turn an honest penny,"' 
would sell the colored men thus obtained to those recruiting 
sergeants for $325 each. By such means as these the cap- 
tain amassed a handsome fortune, and about the time he was 
relieved from the office he had an agent offering $40,000 for 
a plantation. Should the captain see this "little book," and 
dispute the foregoing statement, I refer him to Mr. Morea, 
the detective. And as he told this to the captain in the 
presence of General Dana, I presume he would tell it over 
again to anybody who should think it worth their notice to 
ask him. 

I saw directly that Colonel Thomas' views and mine with 
regard to the moral training of the freedmen in their new 
position did not correspond, and we did not have long to 
wait till an occasion occurred which exploded the mine and 
blew all my hopes of " biscuit, cakes^ and butter into the 
middle of next week." It was this : there was a notorious 
scoundrel by the name of George Clark, originally from 
Mississippi, staying upon the Parker plantation on Walnut 
bayou. He was a terror to the negroes whom Parker left 
on the plantation. He was in the commission of every 
offence, large and small. He was a large and athletic man, as 
well as a daring villain, and as to scruples, he had none in 
committing any crime. He one night went to the house of 
Colonel Graves, a citizen on Little Tensas bayou, and fired, 
as he thought, at Mr. Graves, but it happened to be one of 
his servants, and killed him. He killed and took off several 
hogs from an old lady, Mrs. Wells. He and his accomplices 
killed three large hogs of Mr. Barker's, which were in a pen 
about ten feet from his door, about thirty chickens, and 
killed four poor hogs in the yard, which were not fit for use. 
He went to the house of John Guider in the daytime, in 
company with another negro by the name of Paul, and killed 
in Guider's lot, before his eyes, three hogs, one of which 
would weigh three hundred pounds. They were armed with 
muskets and pistols, and told the servant girl they were com- 
ing back after corn. Hearing of this case I went to Par- 
ham's plantation. The negroes there saw them pass, and 



57 

one, Jesse, bought half a shout of them. Jesse seemed to 
be an honest fellow, and willing to go with me and identify 
them ; I pursued them. When I got to Parker's [ made in- 
quiries if they knew anything of them, but none would con- 
fess to seeing the robbers. I went into a cabin and saw a 
piece of very fat fresh pork on the table, and asked the 
woman who lived there where she got that meat. She was 
loth to tell at first, knowing me to be the sheriff and provost 
marshal, and became alarmed. Upon my assuring her I only 
wanted to know how she came by the meat, and who gave 
it to her, she then told me it was George, and pointed to the 
house where he lived. I went into the room, and behind 
the door I found a large shoulder and the hog's head, and on 
a bed I found another shoulder and some pieces under a 
blanket. I also found a loaded gun. I now could find out 
everything about George Clark, and learned where his com- 
rade lived, and his name. Paul lived at the Cooper planta- 
tion, two miles further down the bayou. I went there, and 
the Parham negro saw and identified him. I then arrested 
him and gave him in charge of my aid, while I searched the 
house. I found no meat but a little in a pot; and upon fur- 
ther search I found a "large bowie knife, bloody, and a gun ; 
the knife I have got yet. I started to carry him to the Bend; 
his friends interceded for him, and laid all the blame on 
Clark. Paul told the whole story as near as a roguish man 
could tell. They agreed to pay me fifty dollars for Paul for 
his share of the damage. I did not then know how much 
damage they had done, and finally, on paying the money, I 
let him go. George having ran off when he saw me com- 
ing, and learning that I took the meat and gun, and also 
about thirteen bushels of corn , which I sold, and paid the money 
to Guider. George now went to Vicksburg and told Col. 
Thomas that he killed the hogs, but he said he had to have 
meat, and told of Paul paying me fifty dollars. Colonel 
Thomas fined him ten dollars and sent him home, telling 
him fifty dollars was enough to pay if he had killed a man ; 
in a few days after, he came to my house demanding his 
meat, and corn, and gun, and told of the protection he had 
from Colonel Thomas. I wrote to Colonel Thomas what 
George had reported of his encouragement to him, and 
asked him if he could deny it. The colonel was silent as 
regarded all this, but before I was aware of my course offend- 
ing the colonel, I was "reduced to the ranks," and was 
superseded in the provost marshal's office by a Lieutenant 
Cheney, and orders issued to his assistants that if I meddled 



58 

with leased plantations or freednien, to have me arrested. 
This order was copied in his letter of revocation to me as 
assistant provost marshal of freednien. I still kept arresting 
the thieves and sending them to Captain Curtis; audi had 
the temerity of displeasing Colonel Thomas, so far as to send 
copies of our correspondence to the State authorities, which 
made (I presume) the colonel to tell his deputies that I had 
a right to arrest all delinquents and bring them to trial. 
This same Clark went last spring, February 3, to Guiders' 
and shot at him in his house, and if it had not been for a 
looking-glass which diverged the ball from its course, would 
have shot Gkrider in the head. I arrested him in Vicksburg 
for this crime also, and after being tried by a military com- 
mission, and all the'facts of the case proven against him, 
together with his own confession, he was turned loose. I 
then affirmed 1 never would arrest another rogue ; I saw no 
use in it. 

About the first of December, 1864, the troops evacuated 
Milliken's Bend, and about Christmas my two boys came to 
me, being discharged when the scouts were disbanded. I 
rented fifty acres of land, and was preparing to plant, when 
some of Colonel Harrison's " man hunters" paid me a visit; 
so my boys had to take to the swamp, and my friend Gan- 
der's wife, for whom I had been embroiling myself with 
Colonel Thomas and the negroes, told the Confederates that 
1 and nay sons were in the Union army, and they came to 
my house to capture me and my boys. We built a little cabin 
in a canebreak, and kept concealed till the Mississippi over- 
flowed its banks. The Confederates went back to the hills, 
and I went towards Vicksburg and engaged to the Planters' 
Association as lieutenant of the home guard scouts, and my 
sons as privates. I was invited to stay at Young's Point by 
a mongrel Yankee lessee and general cotton thief, as I after- 
wards found him to be. He had a partner by the name of 
McCullough, an Irishman from Vicksburg, a regular thief 
and harborer of thieves. These " noble pair of brothers" 
brought with them a lot of stolen horses and mules, which 
they bought from negroes in Mississippi. I found the owner 
of some of them, a man by the name of Watt. Watt got an 
order from the provost, directed to me, to seize the horses 
and mules and deliver them to Watt, which I did. Watt 
compromised the case with Swan and McCullough; and 
though he offered me a liberal reward if I would get him the 
horses and mules, after his leaving my house to return three 
weeks following, I have not seen him since. 



59 



During the overflow of the Mississippi the guerrillas were 
cut off from any and all approach to Young'* ?*«feV W 
crevasse in the levee there, and all approach to V icUbm e, 
except by water. We had nothing to do now, as the high 
wate? cut off all fears of the guerrillas, and we having no 
means of support, the prospect of living was gloomy indeed. 
In the overflowed land at Young's Point there grew a species 
of blackberry, called the dewberry, and as it was the ior- 
wardest fruit that ripens in this latitude, I concluded to 
SfeTsome and take (hem to Yicksburg They were obtained 
Snly by boating and wading. I sold the hrst_ lot for fatty 
cents Jquart; °and so on, in a reduction of prices till they 
were all gone. By this means I obtained about seventy 
dollars' worth of provisions; but it was dearly purchased, 
for through wading to pick the berries and boating to 
Ylcksbui/and bac£ my boys and myself took the typhc od 
malaria, from exposure and continually being m the .water 
The overflow was so great we could go nowhere without a 

3 °When the river commenced falling I went to the plan- 
tation I had leased, and planted about seven acres oi corn, 
some with a stick and some with a hoe. After peace was 
proclaimed on the west of the Mississippi the citizens began 
to return to their homes. I went to tend my corn myseli— 
mv boys being sick. I was there informed by one of my 
sons that Swan and McCullough had gone to Yicksburg, 
and sworn before the provost marshal that I was an intruder 
on their Young's Point lease, &c. ; and as I was from home 
and could not answer to the summons, they procured a writ 
to have me ejected, and a guard, also, to see it carried into 
execution Having been informed of this, and my presence 
being needed with my family, I sold my saddle and my in- 
terest in the corn for $50, gave up a mule I had captured, 
and walked to Young's Point. The few articles of furniture 
I had were out of doors, and everything m contusion, and, 
worse than all, my wife sick. I resolved to trace my steps 
back to my old home on the Calcasieu river, Rapides 
parish. My wife was getting. worse, and having no medical 
Lid nearer than Yicksburg, I procured a team from Mr. Mc- 
Callister, a lessee, to remove me to De Soto landing, opposite 
Yicksburg, where I could obtain medical aid for her and my 
children as I had now four of them on the sick list. , lhe 
sur-eon'at De Soto, who had charge of the freedmen fliere 
attended on my family. My wife grew worse every day, and 
as there was but one white woman at De boto, I went to 



60 

Vicksburg for a female physician. I told her I had no hopes 
of her recovery. She, too, upon examination, confirmed my 
worst fears, and by 7 o'clock next morning she breathed her 
last. I buried her on the levee, on the 27th day of July, 
1865. 

" She died; but not alone. She held within 

A second principle of life, which might 
Have dawned a fair and sinless child — 

But closed its little being without light, 
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein 

Blossom and bough lay wither'd in one blight! 
In vain the dews of heaven descend above 

The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love. 
Thus lived, thus died she. Never more on her 

Shall sorrow light or want. She was not made, 
Through years or moons, the inner weight to bear 

Which colder hearts endure, till they are laid 
By age in earth." 

And ; t» her grave I buried my best and, almost, only friend. 



CHAPTER IX. 



" I could stand upright 
Against the tyranny of age and fortune; 
But the sad weight of such ingratitude 
Will crush me into earth." 

I determined to leave Vicksburg as quick as I could get 
transportation ; and after selling a few articles of furniture — 
theugh at a great sacrifice — with which I did not wish to be 
encumbered, more especially as my oldest children, being 
very sick, were unable to do anything to assist me, and my 
own health was failing fast, from exposure, fatigue, anxiety, 
and grief. And, besides, I had but little money; and as I 
had to go to Alexandria by the way of New Orleans, I tried 
to hoard the little I had with the grasping avidity of a miser; 
so I went to General , commanding the port at Vicks- 
burg. He referred me to his adjutant, to whom I showed 
my discharge as an officer of the Federal army, and also my 



61 

sons' discharges, and other "papers." This dignitary did 
not" see " that those papers would warrant him to give me 
"transportation," and referred me hack to the general. This 
man "in hrief authority" would not interfere with his adju- 
tant's decision. 

This ingratitude cut me to the heart, for this was " the 
most unkindly cut of all," which made me exclaim, with a 
hitterness already soured hy misfortune, " How is this ? You 
send rebel soldiers, who have been fighting against you for 
four years, to their homes, and you refuse me and my boys 
transportation who were fighting for you. This is a damned 
nice state of affairs ! " I would have reported the case to 
General Slocum ; but seeing a boat coming down the river, 
rounding the point, I hastened to the wharf-boat, where my 
children were, and got on the boat — the " Henry Von Phul" — 
and, from my pecuniary inability, I had to take a deck pas- 
sage to New Orleans. 

On the fourth of July last I had written two letters, one 
to Governor Wells and one to his son Montford, naval ofhcer 
at New Orleans, briefly informing them of my abject situa- 
tion; and as he had removed me from the sheriffalty of 
Madison parish, by the appointment of a rebel ki my place, I 
solicitously begged him to give me some employment ; but 
I got no answer. I thought, when I should see him in 
person, he would do something for me, seeing how poverty, 
sickness, and death had made me their sport ; but, like all 
my other visionary hopes, the}- vanished like a mist before 
the sun. 

The governor was polite and hospitable, he was willing 
to do anything he could for me, but, poor man, he could 
" see " nothing he could do for me ; but I could see, by the 
New Orleans papers, that not a week scarcely passed but 
there were lucrative appointments made by the "executive." 
He wished me well, I have no doubt ; but his wishes had 
about the same effect on me as those of the Pharisee had on 
the poor beggar, " Be fed and be clothed ; but he gave him 
nothing." 

He introduced me to Brigadier General Sherman, provost 
marshal, department of the Gulf, to beg General Sheridan 
would give me a letter to the commanding officer of Alex- 
andria, &c, &c. ; which General Sherman did, with much 
urbanity and kind feelings. When I saw the governor I 
was scarcely able to wa?k, though I did not give up finally 
till, quite worn down from watching, grief, anxiety, and dis- 
appointments, the malaria — having, in my present state of 



body and mind, full control of my system — attacked me with 
a hot, burning fever, which rendered me delirious. 

The stringency of my pecuniary affairs compelled me to 
seek lodgings for myself and family upon the cheapest terms 
possible. The hotel where we boarded is well known to re- 
fugees at least, and its character for bad fare had not abated 
irice the year anno Domini 1864. I had not been able to 
leave my room, and had to pay a good lady who boarded at 
the hotel, surnamed "Commercial," to wait on my little 
children, the two youngest being dangerously ill. After two 
weeks we mended a little, and with the first Government 
boat I sailed for Alexandria. I should not have left the port 
then had I known the state of affairs to be as they really 
were. Speaking of this to Governor Wells, he remarked, 
"You never saw a set of worse whipped men in your life;" 
referring to the secessionists. But I found by practical de- 
monstration that the governor knew nothing of the state of 
political feeling in his native parish, Rapides, or if he did, 
he wofully misrepresented it to me. 

When we landed in Alexandria I went to General Haw- 
kins and showed him my "papers." He ordered me a team, 
and sent a guard of three men with me. About twenty 
miles from Alexandria I met a Union man by the name of 
MeKutt. He told me there was danger in my going out on 
the Calcasieu to live; that he heard a man say that if Captain 
Haynes ever came back it would not be well for him. I 
had to pass by what was once my home ; my home no longer, 
for the ravages of war had done its work there. I went to 
an old quadroon woman's house by the name of Perkins ; 
her two grandsons were in the scouts, and her son-in-law, 
Johnson, was killed by Bill Ivey. I stopped here, not know- 
ing what to do, for all seemed gloomy and dark around me. 
I nor any of my children were well. The old lady was glad 
to see me, and sorry to hear that my wife was dead, for, as 
the old lady said, she was her best friend while she lived 
near her. 

Next day I was sick, and laid down on the bed on the 
gallery. After taking a nap the old lady told me that while 
I slept two men on horseback came to the fence and inquired 
of her if old Captain Haynes was staying at her house, and 
that if he was she had better get shut of him, for if she did 
not, she would suffer the same fate as he ; that the Pauls, the 
Johnsons, the Selonches, the Dunhams, and all the county 
in fact, were against him. I learned the same from others, 



63 

and was advised not to stay out in that section of the coun- 
try. Provisions could scarcely be had at any price, and I 
being out of means, and not having found anything of what 
I left, had to get my supplies from the post commissary at 
Alexandria. I moved my children to my quartermaster 
sergeant's, Brooks, and one of the boys getting so that he 
could travel, I sent him to Texas to see his grandmother and 
uncle and aunt, who lived there, as we had not heard from 
each other in nearly three years. As I had to go to Alex- 
andria for rations for my family, I went to General Hawkins 
and told him how the situation was in the country;' of the 
threats made against my life, and that I had to travel armed, 
and was afraid to return the road I came ; that I had nothing 
to do in the county, and even if I had, I was sick and dis- 
abled. He therefore ordered the quartermaster to give me 
employment. The wages were small, it is true, but he was 
crowded with employees, and did the best he could. 

While I was in Alexandria I met, for the first time since 
I left New Orleans, Captain Corley of the Louisiana scouts, 
and after a loug talk I asked him to come and take a drink. 
As we walked out of the drinking shop we had to pass 
through a narrow passage about six feet wide ; I saw in my 
front five or six men blocking up the passage. I did not 
know either of them ; in fact I paid no attention to them, 
being busy conversing with Captain Corley, when one of 
them, a young man, struck me with his fist, observing: "You 

treated my family kindly, did you, you damned ." 

lie struck at me several times, but I warded off hie blows, 
having, in my younger days, learned " the manly a»rt of self- 
defence." Seeing he was not likely to do much damage in 
this kind of attack, he. sprung at me, being doubly enraged, 
and grasped me by the throat and tripped up my feet. The 
passage being very narrow I fell, against the wall with my 
broken shoulder. He then stamped me with the heel of his 
boot. I was so weak from a long sickness that I did not 
possess the strength of a ten-year ©Id boy, and if he had not- 
been prevented by Mr. Bogan of Alexandria, I believe he 
would have killed me. I wish it to be known that I know 
the gentlemen who encouraged him with their presence in 
the gallery. 

So badly was I hurt that for upwards of two months I 
could not lie upon my right side; my broken arm being so 
badly injured that I cannot now, November 12, put on my 
clothes without pain. My friend, the captain, abandoned 



64 

me in the strife, and I did not see him for four weeks after- 
wards. 

I was intent upon instituting suits for damages against 
Smith and Vansaux for shooting me, against Captain Staf- 
ford for plundering my wife, and against Joseph Texada 
for bodily injuries. I went to a lawyer named Barlow, who 
passed for a Union man, as he left Alexandria with Banks" 
army for New Orleans, when I got acquainted with him. 
After briefly stating my case, he told me he could not attend 
to it, as he was going north and would not be back till after 
court, &c, and referred me to Captain White. I noticed 
Barlow in town every day, and he was there during court. 
I saw directly how matters stood with him. The poor pusil- 
lanimous creature was afraid to undertake my case, lest he 
should lose caste with the rebels, whom he now longed to 
propitiate. 

I then went to Captain White, and after briefly stating my 
case to him, he said he did not think it was any use to insti- 
tute suits against them ; that, in fact, he was certain I could 
not recover anything. I then remarked: "Has the moral 
sense of the country got to so low an ebb that a jury 
would perjure themselves to keep from doing justice to a 
Union man?" He answered, "It appears so;" and further 
remarked that he was himself a Confederate officer, and 
would not undertake the case under any consideration, "if," 
as he remarked, "I must tell you the truth." I thanked 
him for his candor, and I would this day trust him before I 
would that "ipse dixit" Union man, Barlow. 

There are two vices which I detest :Hbove any, or perhaps 
the whole brood of the balance, and tl.ey are ingratitude and 
hypocrisy. What Captain White stated to me as his opin- 
ion, I found verified in fact, when I tried to prosecute Smith 
and Yansaux for shooting me, and Texada for an aggravated 
assault and battery. I had prepared a written statement, 
briefly though, to present to General G. M. Graham, fore- 
man of the grand jury, of the cases I wished to bring before 
that body — aye! it was a body, sure enough; but without a 
soul. I opened the door of the grand jury room, no officer 
being stationed there. I was told I could not come in. I 
said I wanted to see the foreman; I was answered in the 
affirmative. I waited some time, and looked in again; the 
same question and answer. I told two of the jury whom I 
saw go in, that I wanted to see General Graham. They said 
he would come out presently. The door opened, but no 



65 



foreman, but Big Pete Eddleman from Lana Cocoa or rather 
Sandersville, one of "Bloody Bob's" bottle companions as 
he passed me going down the steps, he said "XiiTnVned 
old thief and robber, what has br^ht you heret" 

Sai^TlST k 1 tW °f ft W^omhe e met?i 
tne staiis. I left the place, for I had reasonable fears of 
being assassinated. I should here make further statement^ 

m my letters to General Graham, the reader is referred to 
them m their proper place in this -little book » 
m In a day or two following I wrote a note to Mikey Ryan, the 
judge, stating the circumstance of the case in detail- but he 
never answered my letter, nor was there any notice taken 

pa mm —or, as Byron has it, "Arcades ambo»— is but a 
mild term to apply to a court and its adjuncts who were 
sworn to present no man through malice, and leave no 
man unpresented through favor." 



CHAPTER X. 



" The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul ! 
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st, 
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends. 
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, 
Unless it be while some tormenting dream 
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils ! 
Thou elvish, marked, abortive, rooting hog, 
Who hast been framed in thy nativity 
The slave of nature and the son of hell ! " 

In concluding this narrative I will make a few desultory 
remarks occasionally, and a digression or two, which may 
serve as a sauce to the insipid monotony of a dry narration 

1 have not had the advantage of any assistance, either 
written or verbal, in enabling me to give a more diffuse and 
perhaps accurate delineation of the many dark and bloody 
deeds which have been committed on both sides during the 
" Reign of Terror" in the northwest section of Louisiana 



To do this is the province of a historian. Should the full 
history of Western Louisiana be written, it would present a 
picture of horrors shocking to the sensitive feelings of hu- 
manity. The cold-blooded murders, to say nothing of thefts 
and robberies ; the barbarity with which these acts of vio- 
lence were committed; the innocencj/ of the "Martyrs of 
Liberty," whose blood was shed to gratify the wolfish thirst 
for blood of those human vampires, cannot be paralleled — 
if in the number of victims sacrificed, not in remorseless 
cruelty, even in the massacres of La Vendee, during the 
"Reign of Terror" of the French revolution. 

One of the first of "Bloody Bob's " murders was the killing 
of Oliver Sanders. He lived about eight miles southeast of 
Manny Sabine parish. He was a poor man, and had a wife 
and eight children. The reader may judge of their age from 
the fact of Sanders being a conscript under the age of 35 
years. Sanders said, that before he would go to fight for 
the rich man's negroes, and leave his family to sutler, while 
the rich man stayed at home — as he could do, according to 
the exemption in the conscript act — if he had to die fighting 
at all he would die fighting at home. "Bloody Bob," hearing 
of this, went to test the truth of his statement ; but, coward 
as he is in his heart — for I never knew a bloodthirsty villain 
to be anything else — he took a company of his vampires 
with him. Sanders was at home; but before he could pre- 
pare to meet them with any hopes of success, they had made 
a charge on the house and surrounded it. Sanders jumped 
for his rifle, which lay on a rack over the door facing the 
road, and in his attempt to get hold of it he exposed his body 
to the full view of his enemies, who poured in a volley on 
him, with dreadful effect to poor Sanders. He staggered 
and fell — fell across a sick child on the bed, pierced with 
eight bullets — a lifeless corpse. Oh ! would not humanity 
shudder at witnessing such a scene. How heart-rending to 
the poor widow and orphans, thus to be deprived of husband 
and father in such a cruel and remorseless manner. I saw the 
grave of Sanders as " Paddy Carey's" men had me a pris- 
oner, on their way to Shrevesport, under a charge of high 
treason. It was on the side of the road, opposite Sanders' 
house, about fifty yards from the house. His wife and some 
neighboring women had to bury him, for the men were 
either in the army or in the woods. 

To follow in detail the number of murders committed by 
this wretch, whose acts of barbarity would not entitle him 



67 

to be classed with the human species, would fill a volume in 
octavo. I only select the case of Sanders as being among 
the first of his deeds of cruelty ; and these cruelties were 
not only sanctioned, but applauded by the sensitive, the elite 
aristocracy of Western Louisiana. 

" Bloody Bob" was, or is, or has been, a quadroon Indian, 
and inherited, in a most felicitous but unhappy manner, the 
inhuman thirst for blood of his dusky progenitors. It is 
strange, but it is a fact, that the mixed races, even to the 
fourth degree, exhibit, when provoked, all the malign pro- 
pensities of the Indian family. There was not an instance 
of any of the mixed stock showing any mercy, even to their 
nearest relatives. For instance : Bass betrayed Connelly, 
his first cousin; Joe Strather shot his uncle, Alexander 
Strather — the latter was a full-blood white, but his nephew 
was an Indian quadroon by the mother's side ; Obi Johnson 
killed his cousin. Josiah Johnson s sons, Charles and Budd, 
were of the black stock, and so was Curley ; and as Calcoat 
married the Johnsons' sisters, it would seem he became in- 
oculated with their thirst for blood, for he was as ravenous 
as the others. There were also Jim Groves, a half-breed 
negro from Rawhide, and Carrol Jones, who was a slave 
born, and would vie with death and hell in all the propensities 
which constituted an incentive to the commission of vile 
atrocities. 

But as an offset to this catalogue of the "colored stock," 
I will present the reader with a brief enumeration of the 
Caucasian family who figured in the bloody drama in North- 
western Louisiana. First and greatest among them were 
General Dick Taylor and General Morton; their "orders" 
can be produced, if necessary, to prove the wicked deeds 
which they had committed. Murder, arson, and plundering 
of the Union men was the order of the day. Next comes 
Bill Smart, Doctor Smart, Reese Smart, Bill Ivey, Dave Paul, 
Jake Gunter, Joe Chambers, Benjamin, Captain Lynn, and 
a host of others ; also, Doctor Dudley, Levi Boyd, Wesley 
Lovin, Bryant Presley, Josiah Strather, and TFerry Cloud. 
The latter were Union men ; but, so far as I knew or heard, 
none of them committed any murders except Dudley, who, I 
am told, killed a man at Hickory flat, for being the cause 
of several Union men being shot. 

All the conscripts who were captured south and north of 
the Red river, were sent to camp Pratt, in St. Martin's 
parish. This camp was presided over by a "genus homo" 



from the Emerald Isle by the title and name of Lieut Col. 
Ross E. Burk. He was once a school teacher, and steam- 
boat clerk, and now a merchant in jSTatchitoches ; and from 
the accounts of the conscripts who deserted from this camp, 
this man was a second edition of Captain Wirz. He has the 
unenviable reputation of being the inventor of the " Devil's 
jacket." This was a flour-barrel with both ends knocked out, 
and holes bored near the chimes for the arms to be run 
through, the barrel resting on the shoulders, and in such a 
position that the unfortunate- wearer of the garment could 
not reach his hands to the lower rim, to relieve him from 
the torture which four hours' wearing in the noon of the day 
occasioned ; and when the offence was for uttering disloyal 
sentiments towards the Confederacy, the culprit had to walk 
before the guard house, bareheaded, four hours each day 
during his imprisonment. 

The north side of Red river was also the scene of numer- 
ous atrocities; the chief perpetrator there was a Captain 
Smith, better known by the soubriquet of "Old Dog Smith." 
This wretch, who was a counterpart to "Bloody Bob," was 
•the terror of the Union men in Winn and Bienville parishes. 
He had a pack of bloodhounds to hunt conscripts with. A 
man by the name of Sandleford, being one of his company, 
his wife sent him word she had nothing to eat for herself 
and children. Sandleford asked leave of "Dog Smith" to 
go home to provide something to eat for his family. "Dog 
Smith" would not let him go. Sandleford said he would 
go at all hazards rather than his family should suffer. "Dog 
Smith " told him if he did go he would pay for it. Sandle- 
ford went, but when he returned he paid for it, sure enough ; 
for this hyena had him tied and shot to death at Mount 
Lebanon, Bienville parish, leaving a heart-broken widow and 
six children in abject poverty and distress. He also shot a 
man in Natchitoches parish, out of a tree, whom his dogs 
ran down, he leaving three orphan children without a mo- 
ther. He also hunted down, in Bienville parish, a mere lad, 
with his dogs; the dogs ran him up a tree. "He was the 
only son of his mother, and she was a widow." This inhu- 
man wretch fired his pistols at him without effect, and then 
ordered his men to shoot him, which order was obeyed by 
the cowardly wretches. The poor boy being mortally 
wounded, fell from the tree. The dogs being enraged by 
the shooting and hallooing of the human bipeds, and smell- 
ing the blood from his wounds, before he fairly touched the 



89 

ground they covered him, literally tearing him to pieces be- 
fore they could be taken off. 

Reader, how would you feel to witness such scenes as these? 
and yet they were but the counterpart of almost daily occur- 
rences. How did the poor, distracted, now childless widowed 
mother feel when the mangled corpse of her only child was 
brought to her door ? Humanity shudders at its contempla- 
tion. Angels tremble at witnessing the fiendish deed, and 
devils shriek for shame at being outdone in diabolical 
wickedness by this human hell-hound. These atrocious deeds 
were committed in open day, in the face of heaven, and by 
the light of the sun ; and yet, not a man of note or influ- 
ence, either civil or military, would raise his voice to stop 
the bloody carnage. But, on the contrary, special orders 
were issued by Taylor, and others of his officers, to kill and 
destroy all who refused to obey their rebellious mandates. 
And strange to say, those men are now in favor with the 
Federal authorities, and not one of these "bloody murder- 
ers" have been brought to trial to answer for their evil deeds. 

Dr. Lovick Pierce, father to Bishop Pierce of Columbus, 
Georgia, in a discussion with Shehane, the Universalist at 
Americus, Georgia, remarked that "he was glad there was 
a hell; and that God would be unjust if there were no place 
hereafter to punish the wicked who in this world committed 
such dark deeds of crime that would shame the powers of 
hell for their lack of will or power to equal them." And I, 
for one, am of his opinion. The laws of all civilized nations 
provide a punishment for every offence, according to its 
magnitude. And why not God, who is wiser than man, 
adopt the polity of which that of man is but a counterpart 
in a descending degree ? Shall we receive a reward for our 
partial good deeds, and no punishment for our evil ones ? 
If this be so, then I can say, " ' Bloody Bob' and ' Old Dog 
Smith' fall to and kill the balance of the Union men." So 
far they have escaped with impunity. There is not a grand 
jury in northwestern Louisiana that will find a "true bill" 
against them for those crimes ; and the Federal authorities 
will not interfere, knowing the state of affairs to be just as 
I have told them. But, on the contrary, those same men 
and their adherents swear that, so soon as the Federal army 
leaves the country, they intend to kill or run off all the 
returned refugees. Not only are these threats made as re- 
gards the returned refugees, but I have heard many express 
it in private conversation ; and I was informed by credible 



70 , 

authority, when in Bienville parish, about the 1st of No- 
vember, 1865, this blessed month and year of our Lord, that 
a gentleman made a speech in that parish at the court house, 
in which he stated that they intended to kill all the negroes 
who took up arms against their masters as soon as they were 
mustered out of service. And I here predict — and mark 
my words — that it will not be six months after the Federal 
garrisons are withdrawn from the Red river district, before 
they will have to be sent back again. And mark me, rebels 
of Louisiana, if the madness of your folly will drive you to 
such extremes as I have here noted, you will rue the day in 
which you were born. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



After arriving in Rapides parish, and finding the state of 
affairs totally contrary to that which was represented to me 
by Governor Wells, and finding the appointments he made 
of the civil officers in that parish and elsewhere to be, for the 
most part, that of noted rebels, and having conversed with 
many of the returned refugees and Louisiana scouts — officers 
and men — they expressing their disapprobation very pointedly 
at Governor Wells' course, I wrote the following anonymous 
letter to Governor Wells, addressed to him through the New 
Orleans Times: 

Alexandria, La., September 18, 1865. 

" I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! 
The foe to tyrants, and his country's friend." 

To J. Madison Wells, Governor of Louisiana : 

Sir : I would respectfully inform you, if you are not already 
aware of the fact, that your policy with regard to appointing 
notorious rebels to office has given great dissatisfaction to your 
old Union friends. Were such appointments but partial, they 
would have looked over it in silence ; but it is the general 
cry all over the State. How is it — as in the case of appointing 
John R. Williams sheriff of Rapides parish, a captain of 
cavalry in the rebel army, and who, as you well know, fought 
against the United States Government till the close of the war, 
and from his wealth and influence most materially aided in the 
rebellion, and unpardoned by the President, he being worth over 
$20,000 — how is it, I say, that you made such a man the chiet 
officer of the parish ? Was there no Union man in the parish 
you could trust with such an office? You did the same in 
Calcasieu parish, where the majority are still Union men. 

Has the result of the elections of 1864 which made you 
governor so changed your nature ? That you have done a 



72 

great deal for the State no man can deny, and none is prouder 
of your success in your mission to Washington than your 
humble servant. 

What astonishes your old friends the most, is the idea that 
by appointing your old enemies to office to reconcile them to 
you — " that the wolf may lie down with the lamb ;" but you 
have not told us where the little child is that is to lead them. 

The same hostSity, bitter and bloody, exists against the 
Union returned refugees which drove them out of the country. 
The murderers, " Bloody Bob" Martin, Bill Ivey, the three 
Smarts, Chambers, Jew Benjamin, Dave Paul, and a host of 
other man-destroying villians, are at their respective homes, 
enjoying in peace the fruits of their bloody deeds. Your 
friends looked to you and hoped you would use your influence 
with the military authorities to have those bloody murderers 
arrested and tried by court martial. If you have done any- 
thing in the premises we have heard nothing of the result ; and 
as to civil law being enforced against them, they claim that 
in their taking the amnesty oath the past is forgiven. Civil 
law, indeed ! Why, you might as well go to law with the devil 
in the court of hell as to sue or prosecute a rebel in this section 
of the State! 

It is a melancholy fact for those Union men to contemplate, 
who were your companions and defenders in your time of greatest 
need, how, in your prosperity, when you could assist them in 
many ways, not one, scarcely, to whom you have given the least 
assistance. You have forgotten your promise of $300 bounty 
each to the Louisiana scouts, which promise you never did ful- 
fill, though you knew very well the utter destitution to which 
they were reduced, especially when Dick Taylor expatriated 
their families, confiscated their property, and burned their 
dwellings, we have seen no effort on your part to redeem your 
promise to the scouts, though you might have easily effected it 
through your influence with the legislature, which sent Gov- 
ernor Halm to the United States Senate, and consequently 
made you governor of Louisiaua. Not a dollar was appropri- 
ated, nor effort made by you to relieve the poor, unfortunate 
women and children, who had to travel from two to four hun- 
dred miles, half naked and barefooted, to be huddled into the 
refugee sink-holes at Natchez, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, 
to die like rotten sheep through the sheer want of the proper 
necessaries of life. 

Believe me, Governor Wells, you have lost the confidence of 
your old companions, the " Jayhawkers," as our enemies call 
us. We little thought the plain old farmer would turn out a 
demagogue. Such an open desertion on your part of the loyal 



73 

citizens of Louisiana, and your affiliating with youf enemies, 
you will find a sufficient excuse for the few votes you will re- 
ceive in the country parishes. For should a secessionist run 
for governor, you will find your new-fangled friends, whom 
you have appointed to office, vote against you to a man, for 
they hate you now just as bad as they did when they hunted 
you and your sons and the other " Jayhawkers" through the 
swamps in 1861 and 1863 ; for they may say, and perhaps with 
a great deal of truth, " that your appointing us to office" — 

" Was for the sake of your dirty fee, 
And not for any love for you or me." 

I enter this " bill of complaint" against you more m sorrow 
than in anger, for had you remained " faithful to the end" none 
would have stood more faithful to you than 

MARCUS CATO. 



Pineville, Rapides Paeish, La., 

October 4, 1865. 

" If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 
I stand for judgment. Answer! Shall I have it? " 

Hon. Michael Ryan : 

Sir : Permit me to inform you that on the 7th day of Novem- 
ber, 1863, I was shot by one Vansaux and Archie Smith, about 
eight miles from Hineston, which shot broke my arm, &c. On 
the 4th day of September, 1865, Joseph Texada committed on 
my person an aggravated assault and battery, in the town of 
Alexandria, in the presence of L. D. Corley, John Bogan. and 
others. I stepped to the grand jury room and desired to see 
the foreman, General Graham. John P. Eddlemond came out 
of the jury room, called me a damned old robber and scoundrel, 
and wanted to know what I was doing there. He repeated the 
same to two of the jurors whom he met on the stairs. 

I returned home a refugee, about the middle of August last, 
but found my home was burned, and I found nothing of what I 
had left. My life was threatened if I stayed in the country, 
(on the Calcasieu near Hineston,) so I came to Pineville under 
the protection of the Federal garrison. 

I am informed that the secessionists swear that as soon as the 
Yankees leave here, they intend to run off all the Union men 
out of the country. Knowing the threats made against my 



74 

life, and being, when sick, beastly maltreated by a secessionist, 
cursed by a member of the grand jury whilst waiting to seek 
redress for my wrongs at the hands of the civil tribunal ; 
not knowing, from the threats made against me, the abuse I 
already received, but I might be assassinated even at the door 
of what should be the temple of justice; so — 

" I came awa' and left the session, 
Seeing they were determined a' on my oppression." 

If I have done anything wrong, I am here ready to answer 
for it. I defy the foul breath of calumny to lay anything to my 
charge and prove it. I can show a record from the highest 
authorities and challenge investigation. 

If such proceedings are allowed to be carried on, vain is 
your assertion of the past being forgiven, of the " wolf laying 
down with the lamb.' 7 I shall hereafter want to see the beast's 
teeth extracted before I choose him for a bed-fellow. 

If you have power to put down these evil doings it is time 
you were at it — if you have, and will not, they will put you 
down. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

D. E. HAYNES, 

Late Capt. U. S. Vols. 



Alexandria, Louisiana, 
October 10, 1865. 

" Why hast thou chosen that cursed sin, 
Hypocrisy, to set up in ? 
Because it is the thrivingest calling — 
The only saint's bell that rings all in?" 

Gen. G. Mason Graham: 

Sir: As an humble citizen of this once happy country, now 
decimated of its inhabitants and rent asunder by the vandalism 
of friend and foe, I take the liberty of addressing you a few 
lines. 

As you have consented to come before the public as a candi- 
date for Congress, I consider it a duty as well as a right to 
make such observations as I shall think pertinent to the posi- 
tion which you now occupy. 

First, as regards some remarks which you made, as chairman 
of the unterrified Democracy, respecting the nomination of the 



75 

parties brought before the public by that most august ass-embly. 
You launched forth into an elaborate encomium on the super- 
lative supremacy of J. Madison Wells, the present governor of 
Louisiana. It is but a short time ago, and ye had a coil of rope 
bought to hang him with, and a shorter time still, ye hunted 
him and his sons and others, whom ye call Jayhawkers, in the 
swamps. 

It is an undeniable fact, that if the great majority of those 
whom ye villify as Jayhawkers were such, then all I have to 
say is that Governor Wells was king of the Jayhawkers. 

You know, as well as any man in Rapides parish, that Gov- 
ernor Wells was at the head of raising the battalion of Louis- 
iana scouts. He, Wells, made a speech to the scouts at Pine- 
ville, encouraging them to enlist, promising them three hundred 
dollars bounty, which promise, by-the-by, he never tried to ful- 
fill, telling them that the country should be disenthralled from 
the ruthless grasp of a horde of traitors. 

Then — another scintillation to illumine the panorama of 
Governor Wells' horoscope, which I may at some future time 
bring before the gaze of an admiring public — I have stated 
enough of facts, which you know to be true, to damn him, as ye 
did damn him then, in the estimation of every secessionist in 
Louisiana, and more especially Rapides parish; or else you are 
doubly damned as a base sycophant for pandering to the sins 
of a man for whom you have had a mortal hatred for the last 
twenty years, 

I tell you, general, you cut a sorry figure when you men- 
tioned the twenty years hostility between you and Governor 
Wells; and how, contrary to all human nature, you gave him 
your " cordial support." Why, you are certainly a paragon of 
modesty ! You must be more than human not to blush at the 
charity you manifested towards Governor Wells, for I declare, 
sinner as I am, I felt my ears tingle at the blush of modesty 
that overspread my physiognomy — for I really thought it was 
enough to make the devil blush, if he were possessed of blushing 
faculties. 

There is another feature in the case, with which Governor 
Wells and you and others are concerned, which I will take the 
liberty of introducing to your notice. It is your loving sym- 
pathies for Governor Wells, and your hatred towards the re- 
turned refugees or Union men; you, as an individual, may deny 
any antipathy for the returned refugees. But let me ask you, 
as foreman of the grand jury, did you cause any investigation 
to be made with regard to the many cold-blooded murders com- 
mitted on Union men in this parish? If you have, I have never 



76 

heard of it; or if you have, your witnesses were those who par- 
ticipated in another " bloody picture in the book of time." 

It is but a few days ago that a Union men was cursed and 
damned by a member of your grand inquest, right at the door 
of what should be " the temple of Justice," whiJst seeking 
redress for his wrongs, he left, not knowing, from threats made 
against his life, the abuse he had previously received, but he 
might be assassinated. Though he informed Judge Ryan of 
these facts, and also the clerk of the court, yet he states he 
never heard of any action being had on the premises. 

You cannot deny it, from yourself, that it would be futile for a 
Union man to seek redress for his wrongs in your courts. The 
general feeling among you being, as is strongly expressed by 
some, to run off all the Union men, or, as some express it, 
" kill 'em out at once, as soon as the damned Yankees leave 
here." 

You know well that your taking the amnesty oath is con- 
sidered among you as a forced-put affair, and that as a general 
thing you pay no more solemnity to its sanctity, than a dog 
would exhibit his ^solemnity at his father's burial. I know of 
many who swear they are ready to take up arms at any time 
and fight the " damned Yankees" over again, yea, for the next 
ten years to come. Some swear that a refugee should not 
work for them; others, that they would buy nothing from a re- 
fugee. 

There is another item in the score of appointments made at 
that celebrated meeting of the " unterrified," and that is the 
nomination for Congress, from the fourth congressional district, 
of General G. M. Graham of Rapides parish. I candidly 
confess that I do believe that you are the most eligible 
for office of any of the whole that were nominated that day. 
There is but one draw-back, and unfortunately you cannot 
remedy the evil, for it has passed the eleventh hour of redemp- 
tion: I mean the " ivee v part you took in the rebellion, you 
being worth over $20,000 dollars, unpardoned by the President, 
renders you totally unfit for such a position. 

It is criminal in a man to deceive his friends knowingly; it 
is folly in a man to deceive himself; you had better look well 
to it, and see, before it is too late, that you are, if you get 
elected, deceiving yourself, your friends, and the whole people 
of Louisiana. For, according to the new test oath, every mem- 
ber to either House of Congress from the States lately in re- 
bellion must swear that " they did not willingly aid or assist 
in the rebellion;" which oath you cannot swear to, nor are there 
three planters in Rapides parish who can take the test oath. 



77 

Your opponent, Mr. Clayborn, is still worse off, if possible, for 
he, in his address to the citizens of the fourth congressional 
district, tells plainly of his rebellious propensities. 

Don't deceive yourself; there is not a man who goes to Con- 
gress but his antecedents will be as well known there as if 
written on Iris forehead; and the result will be, the South will 
find itself without a representation. The Republicans will make 
such laws for you as will suit themselves; perhaps confiscate 
your lands, pass a free negro suffrage law, and, as they have 
already threatened, turn loose in your midst 120,000 armed 
negroes. 

Here is a point to test your modesty; inform your friends of 
your and their incompetency for their office; get some good 
Union man to run for the office who can take the test oaSh 
conscientiously, and as far as you can, whilst you have time, 
try to avert this dreadful calamity, which will be the inevitable 
result of the madness of your folly if you stubbornly persist 
in your present career. 

ANONYMOUS. 

Upon General Graham's receiving the foregoing letter, it 
was circulated broadcast over the parish that I, in con- 
nection with another gentleman, who knew no more about it 
than the " man in the moon," were the authors, and that I 
especially was disseminating the principles of the black re- 
publican party. I immediately acknowledged its paternity in 
the following letter to General Graham and his coadjutors of 
the grand jury: 

Alexandria, La., Oct. 19, 1865. 

I am not so deformed, for late I've stood 
Upon the margin of the briny flood ; 
The winds were still, and if the glass be true, 
With Daphnes I could vie, though judged by you. 

The following are extracts of the letter of which the foregoing 
paragraph is a notice. It was addressed to Gen. G. Mason 
Graham, foreman of the grand jury of Rapides parish, and 
through him to his coadjutors of the jury. 

As I have already published in tins work my letter to Judge 
Ryan, which letter explains the main facts in the case stated in 
the forepart of this letter, I do not deem it necessary to reit- 
erate it here. 

Suffice it to say that the grand jury refused to hear me, and 
drove me from the jury room with much abuse and insult, and 



78 

sent into the county for witnesses to prosecute me for robbery, 
for going with my command down the Red river, with the 2d, 
Mass. Cavalry and 128th N. Y. Infantry, foraging for corn, 
and also for going up Rapides bayou by orders from Gen. Gro- 
vcr, commanding post at Alexandria, to capture the robbers 
(Copt. Dennis & Co..) who were depredating on the citizens, 
the same who shot Tom Woodard, and of whom Gen. Graham 
and the families of the other rebels who were in the rebel army 
stood in awe. I captured the whole gang, for doing which the 
whole settlement were much rejoiced, and none more so than 
Gen. Graham. 

So highly did you appreciate my services, Men, that you took 
me to your house and treated me, and the four men I kept as a 
guard, to a bottle or two of your choice elderberry wine, and 
you then asserted I done you a thousand dollars' worth of good. 
This was when you knew, and I mentioned the fact to you, you 
had hot, nor would not take the oath of allegiance, and I men- 
tioned the fact to you that you were suspected of disloyalty to 
the United States Government. Yet it made no difference with 
me in righting the wrongs I saw you were suffering under in 
your domestic affairs. 

Yet. for all this, you have, in your official capacity as foreman 
of the grand jury, contrary to your oaths, neglected or refused 
to do me justice in having my wrongs righted ; but, on the con- 
trary, sent out for witnesses to try to find bills against me, for 
what I do not know, whilst acting under orders from the United 
States officers in command at Alexandria, and I then an officer 
of the United States volunteers. 

You have, it appears, forgotten that I had any wrongs to re- 
dress, or any rights to maintain, how my house and premises 
were burned to the ground, without any military necessity, or 
by any orders from the Confederate authorities, how my wife's 
wagons were plundered, at Pofk's bridge on Bayou Bocuf by the 
Confederates, whilst attempting to join me at Alexandria, though 
with tears, she begged for herself and her four sma^ children, 
yet she was rudely and ruthlessly repulsed, and her property 
plundered, before her face, with as little remorse as if her cap- 
tors were a band of Arabs, instead of the boasted chivalry of 
the South — the land of her birth and of my adoption. Yet I 
did not harbor malice against you or your people, but, on the 
contrary, when the army was on the retreat, when Gov. Moore's 
dwelling and sugar-houses were burning, I placed a guard around 
Judge Bai'Mio's house and quarters, and prevented the burning 
of his premises, though he had three sons in the Confederate 
service then. In open honorable warfare I fought the confed- 
erates as a soldier in the United States army, and would again 



79 

under similar circumstances, though I deprecate all useless de- 
vastations of property inconsistent with the rules of military 
discipline. 

Setting aside my case altogether, let me call your attention 
to the cold-blooded murders committed by Bob Martin, Bill 
Smart, Dave Paul, Bill Ivey, Benjamin and others, in this par- 
ish ; the hanging, like dogs, of two superannuated men, Walley 
and Cloud, men who were as inoffensive as new-born babes; the 
killing of three men at Clear Creek on the ninth of May last; 
the burning of houses unauthorized even by that merciless brute 
Dick Taylor ; yet you have taken no cognizance of those open 
violations of law, though your oath bound you to leave no man 
unpresented through favor. 

Have you ever examined into the cause of the massacres of 
the union men in the Calcasieu district? if not, let me jog your 
memory with some incidents which may afford some light on 
the subject. In the spring of 18(31 there was an election held 
in this parish for delegates to the convention which caused 
Louisiana to cecede from the United States. Bill Smart and 
Louis Texada were candidates for the convention, and in the 
western portion of this parish they proclaimed themselves union 
men, but when they went to the convention they voted the State 
out of the Union. The union men swore they would not fight 
against the United States Government. 

The Confederate Congress passed a conscript act, and an ex- 
emption in that act of all persons owning twenty negroes, or 
five hundred head of cattle. 

The union men swore they would not leave their families to 
suffer, and go fight for your negroes, when you would not fight 
for them yourselves. You then sent out your conscript hunters 
to capture those whom some of your lousy aristocracy were 
pleased to call "Kosin-heels." There was no mercy shown 
them if found in the woods, whatever may be their business, 
they were hunted with bloodhounds, and many were cruelly 
murdered in their houses. When the yellow jacket battalion 
killed, near Hineston, two young men, Parker and Flyn, when 
the news came to Alexandria of their murder, Major Surget, 
Dick Taylor's adjutant, was heard to exclaim : "Kill them, 
God damn 'em, kill 'em, that's the way to bring them in." The 
Louisiana Democrat, in an editorial of August, 1863, had black 
lines to be placed against the names of all persons who deserted 
from the Confederate army, or who took to the swamps, and, 
"when the Confederacy gained its independence, as sure as night 
followed day, there would be a dead reckoning made against 
them." 

Such were the counsels of some of the leaders of the Confcder- 



80 

acy, in Rapides parish, men, who were too cowardly to fight, 
stood behind the scenes, encouraging rapine and murder, but as 
soon as Gen. Banks came to Alexandria, were first amongst the 
foremost to come and beg the privilege of kissing the "Rail- 
Splitter's toe" in the shape of the " Ironclad oath," thereby ac- 
knowledging themselves as "pardoned traitors." 

When Banks whipped Dick Taylor on the Techc, the Texian 
soldiers broke for home, they robbed and plundered the union 
men as they traveled. The yellow jacket battalion, whilst 
camped at Hineston, robbed the union men's houses of every- 
thing they could lay their hands on. Bed-clothes, plow-gear, 
cow and horse bells, and even the women's shoes and little 
trinkets of jewelry. Bob Martin, and Bill Ivey's companies 
done the same and sometimes worse, for they took, even, the 
pieces of homespun which the women spun and wove with their 
own- hands to cover the nakedness of their children. 

Do you wonder there were recriminations committed for such 
atrocities? I know there were. I never justified them in doing 
so, but on the contrary advised against it. 

I appeal to Archie Smith, who was one of the two who shot 
me and broke my arm, on the public road near Smith's house, 
if I did not give protection papers to his wife, against any 
marauders who should come to interrupt her. I done the same 
for Mrs. Polk, and would, had Banks not evacuated Alexandria, 
have arrested, arid sent to Ship island every scoundrel I could 
catch in the commission of any offence. I had procured an 
order from Gen. Grover to that effect, 

"The evils which men do live after them, 
The good is often buried with their bones." 

So let it be with me. What I left was destroyed by my en- 
emies, I carried nothing with me, I brought nothing back but 
sickness and sorrow, for the loss of my wife and child, who met 
a premature death from the hardships which they suffered from 
the persecution of their enemies. 

I have been informed, that an anonymous letter, which you 
received a couple of weeks ago, was attributed to me and an- 
other gentleman in this parish, and it has been industriously 
circulated that I, as its author, advocated the doctrine of 
black republicanism. Now, sir, let me state to you candidly, 
that if the gentleman's name in question was left out, you might, 
as long as you please, and as much as you choose, (I use the pro- 
noun you in the plural,) father that letter on me, and abuse 
me for being a black republican ; it would have availed noth- 
ing with me. But as an innocent person's name has been dragged 



81 

into notice, in connection with a character as black as you 
strive to make mine appear, I acknowledge the paternity of a 
certain anonymous letter which I addressed to you, and dated 
Alexandria, Oct. 10, 1865. I challenge you to point out one 
single sentence, or phrase, in that letter that can be tortured 
into favoring black republicanism ; and as a proof of this fact, 
if you will send me the letter I will have it published, or other- 
wise I shall publish it from a rough copy in my possession. I 
gave you, in that letter, good wholesome advice which it would 
be well for you, and the country at large, to have taken in time. 
I gave you similar good advice five years ago, which you rejected 
with scorn, and which since you have wished in yourheart 
you had taken. It was the giving of this advice, which rendered 
me obnoxious with you and your friends ; that caused my 
arrest, and being sent under a charge of high treason to Gen. 
Kirby Smith — from whence emanated all my misfortunes, 
which caused me to "eat the bread of affliction and drink the 
waters of tribulation." I give you similar good advice now, 
which I am very certain you will not follow any more than 
you've done five years ago ; and I see the fruits of my kindness 
to you now, is being exhibited by industriously circulating my 
favoring black republicanism. 

From the tenor of the prejudices circulated against me, I 
should stand a poor showing for my life, if twelve months ago, 
I should have the temerity of being audacious enough to coun- 
sel so august a personage as Gen. G. Mason Graham. It ap- 
pears that the principle adopted now in Rapides parish, is that 
when you cannot destroy with your sting you disfigure with 
your slime. 

"For, the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch and Sweetheart, 
See, they all bark at me." 



I am a southern man m the true honest sense of the word, I 
have fought in the Florida war, and, as a soldier who won 
some fame for his prowess in Nicaragua, I fought for you there 
too. But because I would support the Constitution of the 
United States, for the maintenance of which I took a solemn 
oath before you would admit me to the rights of citizenship, and 
because I would not wittingly violate that oath by joining the 
rebellion, you consign my name and character to' the blackest 
pit of infamy and scorn. 

As you and your party were, for the sake of political favors, 
mendacious enough to endorse Governor Wells and all his 
official acts, giving him your cordial support, now let me show 
6 



82 

you what Governor Wells thinks of me, as well as some more 
persons equally as patriotic as he: 



New Orleans, March 3, 1864. 
Col. B. F. Flanders : 

Dear Sir: The bearer of this, Mr. Haynes, is a refugee from 
Texas, and has suffered much. He wishes employment and I 
think deserves it. 

If you can do anything for him, you will oblige me. 
Yours, truly, 

(Signed,) A. J. HAMILTON. 



New Orleans, July 21, 1864. 
Gov. M. Hahn : 

Allow me to introduce you to Captain Haynes, a citizen of 
my native parish, a refugee, and a loyal citizen to the United 
States. Captain Haynes is trustworthy and fully reliable, and 
any attention will be thankfully acknowledged. 
With regard, your obedient servant, 

(Signed,) J. MADISON WELLS. 



Headquarters Military Division of the Gulf, 

Office Provost Marshal General, 
New Orleans, La., August 7, 1865. 
By direction of the major general commanding this military 
division, I hereby recommend to the notice of the military 
authorities of Louisiana Captain D. B. Haynes, who has been 
active in the service o£ the United States ; calMng attention 
to the endorsement of his excellency J. Madison Wells, Gover- 
nor of Louisiana. 

F. SHERMAN, 
Provost Marshal General. 

The foregoing certificates speak for themselves. You cannot, 
without stultifying yourself, endorse Governor Wells, and 
slander me at the same time. You must either renew your 
twenty years' hostility to the governor, or else confess yourself a 
base and malignant slanderer. There is not a dog that barks 
at me and endorses Governor Wells, but his endorsement of 
inc up to the 7th of August, 1865, is like a muzzle of adamant 
on the mouth of the slanderer. You can take either horn of 
the dilemma, and whichever horn you take it will gore you to 
the death. 



83 

As to your malicious presentment of me, if you were as 
foolish as you are malicious to find bills against me, you will 
see by the foregoing recommendation of General Sheridan how 
far your folly would carry you in presenting me, an offi- 
cer in the United States army, and you a pack, for the most 
part, of unpardoned traitors. 

Yours, with all the respect due to you, 

D. E. HAYNES. 



"Ah me, what troubles do await 
The man who meddles with the State." 

Alexandria, La., October 28, 1865. 

To His Excellency J. Madison Wells : 

Dear Sir : I take the liberty of informing you of the sta^e 
of public feeling here with regard to the coming election for 
governor. You may have seen ere this reaches you, how your 
quondam friends, whom you appointed to fat offices, are vacil- 
ating, nay performing complete political summersets ; those who 
endorsed your policy in their public meetings, promising to 
give you their " cordial support," are now arraying themselves 
in solid phalanx to oppose your election, and giving to the ex- 
rebel Gov. Allen their more than "cordial support." The fol- 
lowing I clipped form the Alexandria Democrat of October 25, 
1865. 

COMMUNICATED. 

" To John Kelso, E. North Cullom, M. Ryan, Henry Boyce, J. 
T. Hatch, E. T. Lewis, T. B. Waters, and J. J. Myers : 

The friends of Allen in Rapides are determined that they 
will not bestow their votes on any candidates for the legisla- 
ture who are opposed to his election, and who would embarrass 
his administration. You are, therefore, respectfully requested 
to make known through the public press your opinions on the 
subject before the election. 

A refusal on your part to do so will be construed as a declar- 
ation against him, and will be so proclaimed to the people. 
(Signed,) Many Voters. 

You might have foreseen this a long time ago, that your ap- 
pointing your enemies to office would be no inducement for them 
to "cleave unto you" the moment they saw a chance to oppose 



84 

you with any hope of success presenting itself by the an- 
nouncement of a popular rebel leader; and such a one they 
have hit upon in the person of ex-Gov. Allen. The friends 
who would have stood to you " through evil as well as good'' 
report you have alienated them from you, by your neglect or 
disrespect for them in not appointing them to office, when in nine 
cases out of ten you appointed to office, according to your own 
phraseology, "brigands, outlaws, and traitors, who have gone 
without the lash of the law too long," and not the least, amongst 
them, you got into office the notorious conscript-hunter Ca.pt. 
Todd, as a land office agent at Opelousas. You know bet- 
ter than I do how Todd flourished in your neighborhood in 1862 
and 1863, and up to Banks' late advent in Alexandria, up to 
March, 1864, when his company dispersed ; and when he thought 
the Confederate cause at a low ebb, like more of the double-dis- 
tilled traitors, who were leading in the van of secession, as 
soon as Banks came to Alexandria were first amongst the 
foremost to beg the privilege of kissing the Bail- Splitter's toe. 

I have seen many of our old union friends since I have been 
here; Dr. Farquaher, John Strather, E. E. Brooks, Clifton, Cain, 
Wetherford, Milam, and many others^ from the Calcasieu dis- 
trict ; also the Chevaliers, Boyce, Capts. Willet, Corley, and 
Hawthorne, north of the Red river, and others, not one of whom 
approve your course of treatment to the Union men, to say 
nothing of myself, though not one among them was more inde- 
fatigable or suffered more in the cause of the Union, yen you 
turned me out of office without assigning a cause, when the 
office became profitable, *and appointed a pack of rebels to office 
in that parish. 

When I was in New Orleans, you saw my utter destitution; 
poverty, sickness, and death, having made me their sport. You 
were so poor in your gifts of appointments that you could not 
find a hole or corner to slow me away in, though I could see in 
mostly every day's paper notice of the many lucrative appoint- 
ments made by the executive 

When you were in Alexandria I tried to catch your eye (o get 
to speak to you, but so intent were you in courting the favor of 
the lousy aristocracy, that I failed to see you. 1 do not know 
how it is, but " straws show which way (he wind blows." I 
am not conscious of ever saying or doing anything to give of- 
fence to you, or any member of your family, up to the time you 
were in Alexandria, yet strange to say that your son Levi 
grossly insulted me, (privately though.) 

You may, it is true, think, and so may he, that I have no in- 
fluence here, and that it would be popular now to insult or as- 
sault "that damned old Captain of Jayhawkers," but let me tell 



85 

you governor, sincerely, and time will demonstrate it, that I am 
HiOre capable of doing a friend a service or an enemy an evil 
Jian perhaps you ever dreamt of. It is your interest, as well 
as your son's, to make as many true friends as you can, and as 
few enemies: for according to a card, published by your brother, 
Montfort Wells, in the Alexandria Democrat of Oct. 25, 1865, 
he givec you a character for paying your debts which is not 
at all to be envied. 

Don't think, governor, that I can rejoice at any evil report 
set afloat against you because I speak to you plainly both what 
I hear and know. "I am a plain blunt man that loves his friends," 
but will not flatter their follies nor hide their faults, especially 
when they grow as high as Mount Olympus." 
Yours, respectfully, 

D. E. HAYNES. 



THE RECONSTRUCTION OF STATES. 



By CAPTAIN D. E. HAYNES, of Louisiana. 



Washington, D. C, December 30, 1865. 
To his Excellency Andrew Johnson, President United States: 

Sir : In your message to the United States Senate of the 
18th instant, you say that " the States lately in rebellion are 
yielding obedience to the laws and Government of the United 
States with more willingness and greater promptitude than, 
under the circumstances, could reasonably have been antici- 
pated." 

Having lately arrived in Washington, and coming from 
the interior of Louisiana, and being a resident of the South 
for twenty-four years previous to the rebellion, and living in 
the heart of rebeldom during the war, I may presume to say, 
without nattering myself, that I know something of the pres- 
ent political status of those people, of whom you are informed 
" are yielding a willing obedience to the laws and Govern- 
ment of the United States." 

In August last, I returned to what was once my home, in 
Rapides parish, Louisiana, but found my home and premises 
in ashes, and divested of everything I possessed^-having lost 
my wife and one of my children, through the hardships 
which they had to encounter, from the ill-treatment of our 
enemies. Every Union man who joined the Louisiana scouts, 
or who abandoned the country when the Federal army re- 
treated from the Red river, % was to be shot if taken. As an 
evidence of this fact the rebels shot one of my men whom 
they captured near my house. Rebel General Dick Taylor 
issued an order to burn the scouts' and refugees' houses, con- 
fiscate their property, and expatriate their families. This 
brutal order was but too faithfully executed. Thousands of 
women and children, barefooted and half naked, had to 

87 



88 

travel from two to four hundred miles ; and huddled into 
the refugee sink-holes in Natchez, Baton Rouge, and New- 
Orleans, where many of them died from the sheer want of 
the proper necessaries of life. Those who remained in the 
country were hunted with blood-hounds, and, when captured, 
butchered in the most barbarous manner. During the last 
two years of the war upwards of one hundred Union men 
were murdered in the Calcasieu district of Louisiana, west 
of Alexandria ; even as late as the 9th of May, 1865, three 
Union men were murdered within sixteen miles of Alexan- 
dria. 

After the cessation of hostilities many of the scouts and 
refugees returned to their homes, or rather to what were once 
their homes. They were first received with scowls, and 
after a little, as your Excellency showed clemency in par- 
doning the most notorious of those traitors, they became 
bolder, and publicly declared that as soon as the Federal 
army, or, as they expressed it, " the damned Yankees," are 
withdrawn, they intend to run off all the Union men, and 
more especially the scouts who took up arms against them. 

On my way from Alexandria to where I once lived, a 
Union man told me that a rebel told him, that " if old Cap- 
tain Ilaynes ever returned, it would not be well for hirn." 
The morning after my arrival in the vicinity of my old home, 
two men came to the house in which I was staying, and in- 
quired of the mistress of the house if " old Captain Haynes 
was staying with her." She replied, " He was; and that he 
came to her house sick, both himself and his children." 
They told her, if she harbored him, she would share the same 
fate with him ; and that all the neighbors — mentioning sev- 
eral of the noted rebels — were opposed to him. 

I w x as informed by many of my friends that it was not safe for 
them to stir abroad, except in squads and well armed; and 
that, as for myself, I stood in imminent danger of being 
assassinated at any moment. 

About the first of September last, I went to Alexandria, 
Louisiana, to try to employ couusel to sue for damages two 
rebels who shot me and broke my arm— they being noways 
connected with any of the rebel military organization of the 
so-called Confederacy — -I could not obtain the services of any 
lawyer — no Union man there having the nerve to take a case 
against the rebels. I applied to an ex-captain of the rebel 
army — James White, of Alexandria. He informed me it 
would be no use for me to sue a rebel ; that he was confident 
no Union man could get a verdict for damages ; that he him- 



89 

self was a rebel officer; that he would not take the case upon 
any terms. I then remarked, " Has the moral turpitude of 
the secessionists got to so low an ebb, that they would per- 
jure themselves rather than do justice to a Union man?" 
He replied, " It appears so, if I must tell you the truth." 

On the fourth of September last, I was beaten violently by 
a rebel in the town of Alexandria. I was then convalescent 
from an attack of the typhoid malaria, and would, I have no 
doubt, been murdered but for the interference of a friend. I 
crossed the Red river at Pineville, opposite Alexandria, and 
took refuge under the protection of the Federal garrison. 

At a called session of the district court at Alexandria, on 
the first of October last, I went to the grand jury room, and 
sent word to General G. Mason Graham, foreman of the 
grand jury, and Democratic candidate for Congress for the 
fourth congressional district of Louisiana, that I wished to 
present some cases before that body. After waiting a 
reasonable time I received no answer, and upon a repetition 
of my request the door opened and out came a violent 
secessionist and cursed and damned and otherwise abused 
me, and asked me what in hell brought me there ? I left 
the place, not knowing, from the threats made against my 
life, the abuse I had already received, and the conduct of 
this juror, but I might be assassinated. 

About the fifth of November, I went eighty miles north- 
west of Alexandria. I was informed that a secessionist made 
a speech at the court house of Bienville parish, in which he 
stated the policy of the Southerners was to kill all the 
negroes who took up arms against their masters as soon as 
they were mustered out of the United States army, as well 
as to run off all the Union men. 

I have heard similar expressions made use of as regards 
the killing of the negro soldiers, and it is a matter of policy 
for a Union man to make no comment upon the defunct 
Confederacy. I was told a few days before I left Alexandria, 
by a man by the name of John Stepnej 7 , that he paid $20 for 
his passage from Alexandria to New Orleans on board the 
steamer Navigator, and when on board, before sailing, he 
remarked, in a conversation on the boat, " that the Confed- 
eracy was played out." He was threatened to be assassinated 
if he traveled on the boat, so he left the boat, and forfeited 
his passage money, before he would risk his life in the com- 
pany with which she was freighted. 

About the first of December, I was informed that Mr. Fitz- 



90 

gerald, the postmaster at Natchitoches, was ordered out of 
the country for being a Union man. 

In the fourth paragraph of your message, you say: " The 
people throughout the entire South evince a laudable desire 
to renew their allegiance to the Government and a cheerful 
return to peaceful pursuits." Methinks that the foregoing 
narration of what I know to be facts, and what can be proven 
to be such, in a portion of the South, exhibits anything but 
a " laudable desire for. peaceful pursuits." 

Your Excellency tells the Senate, and the nation in gen- 
eral, that you have an abiding faith that the actions of the 
rebels will conform to their professions, and your language 
applies to the entire South. Now, sir, if your Excellency 
will take the trouble to make an impartial investigation of 
the actions of the people of Louisiana as a part of the entire 
South, as regards the election on the first Monday in Novem- 
ber last, you will find that their actions do not conform to 
their professions ; but, on the contrary, are antagonistic to 
the laws and Government of the United States, and to your 
proclamation of May 29, 1865. 

According to the constitution of Louisiana, no man is 
entitled to vote who has not been a resident of the State 
twelve months previous to the day of election, and three 
months in the parish. Yet in the city of New Orleans up- 
wards of three thousand votes were polled for the rebel can- 
didates by the returned rebel soldiers and registered enemies, 
who were absent from the State three years previous to the 
election. Thousands voted in the country parishes who never 
took the oath of allegiance, and many, very many voted, who 
were worth upwards of $20,000, unpardoned by the Presi- 
dent. 

The result of this election proved conclusively "their laud- 
able desire to renew their allegiance" by electing to both 
branches of their legislature none but avowed rebels, with 
but one single exception. 

This course of procedure on their part was encouraged and 
fostered by the backsliding of Governor Wells, who appointed 
to ofiice, in the Red river country and northeast Louisiana, 
notorious rebels, whom he knew to be such, thereby giving 
the political control of the State into the hands of the enemies 
of the United States Government. 

Subsidiary to the civil policy inaugurated by Governor 
Wells was his appointing militia officers all over the State, 
who, to him, were well known as leaders in the rebel army, 
though there were many whom he knew to be good and 



91 

true Union men in the State, and among them the Louisiana 
scouts, yet he was studious to avoid taking notice of them 
either in the military as well as the civil policy of the State. 

When some of the friends of ex-rebel Governor Allen put 
his name before the people of Louisiana as a candidate for 
governor, the rebels declared it would not do to vote for 
Allen then, though he was their choice; that if he were 
elected, the President may not pardon him ; that Wells was 
known to be a Union man, and had great influence at Wash- 
ington, and by voting for Wells, they would show their 
loyalty and obtain admission for the State into the Union. 

As regards " the change in the relations between the two 
races," I do not think that the change has thus far profited 
either ; and if the bill which has been brought before the 
State senate, on the fifth instant, be an index to^he negroe's 
future fate, should said bill be carried into effect, (and it is 
more than likely it will, if no intervening powder resists its 
effects,) would be by far worse than when m a state of 
slavery. 

If the " reliable authority" from whom your Excellency 
derived your information would stroll into the interior of " the 
States lately in rebellion," lay by their insignia of office and 
travel incog. , instead of being toasted and feasted at crack 
hotels by rebel officers and civic traitors, whose aim is to 
mislead the Government at Washington, make their inqui- 
ries of the true friends of the Government, your Excellency 
would receive such information as would induce you to 
change the tone of your message of the eighteenth instant to 
the United States Senate ; that Senator Sumner would have 
no cause to charge your message with " whitewashing the 
States lately in rebellion." 

It is a melancholy fact, as well as a reliable truth, for the 
Union men of the South to comtemplate that, after having 
stood the brunt of persecution and untold of hardships dur- 
ing the "reign of terror," in the heart of the enemy's country, 
that now when the blessings of peace dawned upon the 
country, they find themselves persecuted by their enemies 
and abandoned by their friends — they finding no redress for 
their grievances in the civil courts of the States, nor can they 
find employment from the Federal officers in the civil de- 
partments ; but, on the contrary, rebels from the rebel army 
are employed in preference to Union men. Let me state to 
your Excellency a case in point. 

About the eighteenth of November last I arrived in ISTew 
Orleans, for the third time a refugee, disabled from my 



92 

wounas, and destitute of every or any means to educate or 
support my five motherless children. A discharged officer 
from the United States volunteers, I made application to 
Judge Kellogg, collector of customs at New Orleans. My 
application was recommended hy the Hon. R. W. Taliaferro, 
postmaster, New Orleans, Hon. John Hawkins, Hon. E. 
King Cutler, United States Senator, and Hon. B. F. Flan- 
ders, special agent of the Treasury Department, New Orleans. 
Five days after my application, Judge Kellogg made some 
fifteen or twenty appointments, more than half of whom 
were rebel soldiers. These facts can be proven, if n^ essary; 
yet, for three weeks I remained in New Orleans, L had no 
hearing from Jiidge Kellogg. 

Should the present political status in Louisiana continue 
in the same progressive ratio during the ensuing six months 
as it has in tne past, the Union men will have tc. abandon 
the State, or fell victims to the bloody policy that drenched 
them in their%lood during the last three years of the war. 

I hope the Executive arm at Yfashi?^ ^ton will not be so 
hampered, from the information dp r.ved "from reliable 
sources," as to leave the returned re'ugees of Western Lou- 
isiana to their fate, through an overweening, though well- 
intended, desire for a hasty rjccastruction. I hope your 
Excellency will be dictated > ,y that noble principle of patri- 
otism and Christian chari"* y which has ennobled your past 
career as well as your present administration. As to Gov- 
ernor Wells, if continued in office, he may as well send a 
cargo of coffins to the Red river district of Louisiana — his 
old home — that hen " Bloody Bob" Martin and old "Dog 
Smith" shall o ; more begin their work of death, the mar- 
tyred refugee- may receive the semblance, at least, of a 
Christian burial, and not be buried like dogs, as they have 
been under the reign of terror during the rebellion. 

WH-; the highest esteem, for your patriotism and love for 
the I uion, I subscribe myself your Excellency's obedient 
Fjryunt, 

P. E. HAYNES. 



EMIGRATION TO THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



Washington, D. C, January 24, 1866. 
Co]. Chase A. Stephens, 

General Stock Agent of the United States Mutual Protection Company : 

Sir: In accordance with your request, I will briefly give you 
my views as regards the efficiency, with respect to the amount 
of good the company may effect in encouraging settlements in 
the Southern States; and the probable results to settlers ema- 
nating from a cheerful compliance and ready co-operation of 
those who are in want of good homes and homesteads, with 
the terms which the company holds out to emigrants. 

The gold regions of California never offered more tangible 
inducements to the adventurer than the cotton regions of the 
South now offer to the agriculturist. The Southern planter, 
divested of the slave monopoly, finds himself in possession of 
vast open, but uncultivated, estates, which from the new order 
inaugurated by the suppression of the rebellion leaves those 
vast fields of enterprise, which were cleared and brought into 
a high state of cultivation by the sweat and blood of the slave, 
open to the emigrant, which by industrious perseverance would 
be sure to yield a very liberal reward for his labor. 

Having been a resident, and of the Southern (cotton) States 
for twenty-four years previous to the rebellion, and living in 
the heart of rebeldom during the war, I cannot be accused of 
flattering myself when I state, that I think I know as much of 
the real value of this section of the United States, to emigrants, 
as, perhaps, one to the manner born; and, not being a stock- 
holder of the Mutual Protection Company, it is not my fault, but 
my misfortune, that I am not; nor have I any lands to rent or 
sell to emigrants, which might be thought to induce me to give 
encouragement to emigration, in order to sell or rent lands or 
make a profitable investment in the stock of the company; I 
therefore, sir, give you my honest views practically drawn 
from long experience and practical results. 

First, as regards the emigration to the Soutlf of loyal Union 



94 

men, and settling in small colonies of from twenty-five to one 
hundred families, within a reasonable distance of each other, 
say from five to twenty miles distant, so as to form a religious 
and political nucleus round which the loyal Union men of the 
South would rally, for protection or support in case of an out- 
break amongst the disaffected. 

Whatever may be the disaffection to Northern Union men at 
this present time, it is not half so much so as the hatred to the 
Southern Union men, whilst an influx of emigration of loyal 
Northern men, under the protection of the United States Gov- 
ernment, would so neutralize any outpouring of the spirit of 
hatred which is now manifesting itself in the breasts of the 
disaffected, from the results emanating from well-cultivated 
plantations, mutual intercourse, and above all and most impor- 
tant to the Southerner, a sure and effectual protection of life 
and property, which is one of the great sources of annoyance 
to a true Southerner regarding the present status of the negro; 
nor will this fear be allayed by the action of the present Con- 
gress with regard to the tight of suffrage to the colored people 
of the District of Columbia, but, on the contrary, will so in- 
crease their alarm, lest the reconstruction policy of Congress 
in not admitting the States lately in rebellion keep them in 
"statu qruo" till they fire willing to embody in their constitu- 
tions the right of suffrage to the negroes. 

Under this hypothesis, and I think I state the true pulsation 
of the southern heart — seeing their armies crushed in the re- 
bellion, their schemes of reconstruction baffled, and to them the 
hateful and cursed policy of negro suffrage looming high in the 
dark horizon of their political zenith — they will stretch out 
the right hand of fellowship to the Northern emigrant, and 
grasp with avidity the hand of hope and the arm of strength 
which he sees ready to launch his fortunes in the same bottom 
with himself. This army of emigrants would prove more 
effectual in maintaining peace and order in the Southern States 
than a standing army of 100,000 men. Not only would its phy- 
sical force in point of numbers be felt, but its moral force 
would be tenfold more conducive in the mutual benefit arising 
to both parties in the cultivation of the soil, in their social re- 
lations, and in the all-absorbing fear of insurrection from the 
colored population. Whether the Southerner has really any 
true ground to dread an outbreak of this nature or not, is not 
the question. This story has been rung in their ears, from 
their cradle to their manhood, till it has become a part of their 
creed to believe that when the negro becomes a free agent, 
nothing but bloody mu/ders and insurrections are the concom- 
itant results of his freedom. 



95 

With regard to the prolific production of the soil, it varies 
according to its nature and locality. That which borders on 
the rivers and bayous being the most prolific ; the Missis- 
sippi swamp lands, the Red river, the Atchafalaya river, the 
Washita, and others of minor note, being considered the best 
lands in the State for cotton, especially that which lies north of 
the parallel of latitude of Baton Rouge; the lands lying south 
of this line being better adapted for sugar-cane than cotton, 
though even here cotton planters make a profitable investment 
in the raising of cotton. The general average of cotton crops, 
previous to the rebellion, was from eight to ten bales of cotton 
to the hand, and sometimes a dozen; the bales averaging four 
hundred pounds — and sugar-cane averaging two hogsheads of 
sugar and four barrels of molasses to the acre. The land as a 
general thing produced from twenty-five to forty bushels of 
corn per acre. Cotton on the plantation generally averaging 
from eight to ten cents per pound; and so abundantly was corn 
produced, that it scarcely received any notice in the scale of 
revenue except as an article of food for the hands and stock. 
Under the low prices of cotton, previous to the rebellion, a 
good hand, hired for the year, usually brought from two 
hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars, two suits of clothes, 
one blanket, and one pair of shoes, and board. From the high 
wages paid for labor and the low price of cotton, the planter 
who depended upon hired labor made but a poor investment* 
of his capital compared with what he can now realize, from the 
high price for cotton and sugar; but we must not look for the 
same results now, as regards the amount of cotton produced 
by free labor in comparison with forced labor. The slave was 
seldom seen before sunrise at the house, nor before sunset, ex- 
cept on Sunday; and if he failed to plow the amount allotted, 
or hoe the number of rows in proper order, or fail to pick a 
certain number of pounds of cotton, wo betide him ! Nor is 
it to be expected, that however industrious he may be, he can 
produce the same amount of labor. He is now a man of 
family; he has to take care of his children and find them the 
necessaries of life, which were attended to by his old master 
when a slave ; besides, in case of sickness in his family, he has 
none to look to but himself ; so, upon the whole, if the war had 
never broke out, and the negroes were freed, their social posi- 
tion, besides their improvidence, and idleness in a great many, 
would render it impossible to cultivate more than one half the 
lands, which would lie idle for lack of sufficient amount of 
labor to cultivate them. 

We may now ask ourselves, what shall be done with the surplus 
lands ? My answer is, whatever the old planter intends doing 



96 

with them, he cannot afford to let thein be idle. He must either 
sell or rent them. He cannot afford to let those lands lie idle, 
and pay three years' tax, he having paid none since the rebellion, 
in one payment; besides, he has to pay the usual tax imposed on 
the parish or county for county purposes, State taxes, and a 
tax lie never paid before, and for which he never dreamed of 
having to pay when he was shouting hosannahs for Jeff. Davis 
and the Confederacy, i. c, the internal revenue tax. Even, 1 
say, however loth he may be to part with those lands, or have 
a " damned Yankee" for a neighbor, he sees there is no other 
resort left, but to sell or rent his lands, or they have to be sold 
to pay the taxes. 

There is another quality of lands of which I will take a brief 
notice: that is the creek lands, and small rivers in the interior. 
Upon all the water-courses, both in Louisiana and Texas, there 
are narrow strips of bottom land, on each side those rivers or 
creeks, on which chiefly reside the poorer classes of the South- 
erners, these lands have received little or no attention from the 
princely planter, they being generally in two small bodies to 
attract his notice. The lands on those creeks are notwithstand- 
ing very productive, and yield upon an average a bale of cotton 
to two acres, and from fifteen to twenty-five bushels of corn to 
the acre; besides, they are, after the first year's cultivation, 
easily cultivated; one hand can cultivate twenty acres with as 
little labor as he can ten on the Mississippi or bayous; besides, 
he has the advantage of good well and spring water, and an 
everlasting range for hogs and cattle, besides any amount of 
game. Those lands, with but few exceptions, arc public lands, 
they not being rich enough, or in large bodies sufficient, to ex- 
cite or attract the cupidity of the man of means. 

In the State of Texas the facilities of obtaining lands is 
much easier than in Louisiana. The same causes which will 
induce the planter of Louisiana to rent or sell lands applies 
equally to the Texian planter. Many plantations are now en- 
tirely abandoned in Texas, or but partially occupied, having 
been* abandoned since the cessation of hostilities; they being 
occupied and improved by those who abandoned their estates 
in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, to escape with their 
negroes and svock from the invasion, to those States, of the 
Federal armies, have since, for the most part, gone back to their 
old homes; besides, there are millions of wood lands in Texas, 
being owned by speculators, who purchased large bodies 
of land with the view of selling them to the slave owner emi- 
grant in large tracts, previous to the rebellion, it was next to 
an impossibility to buy a tract of one or two hundred acres 
from the land speculator; it being an arrangement which did 



97 

not suit him to break into Ills calculations of disposing of large 
tracts to the wealthy slave owner, consequently the poor white 
man, in Texas, had to content himself the best he could, and 
make the best living he could off the pine lands and creek 
bottoms. But since the slave monopoly, has been overthrown, 
the Texian speculator would be very glad to sell his lands upon 
the most reasonable terms. I would here remark that the 
speculators owned the best of the lands in Texas, as they had 
an opportunity of examining the kind of lands they entered 
previous to their purchasing them. And as their object was to 
sell those lands to those who raised cotton, you may rely upon 
it, those lands are not to be excelled for the production of that 
staple by any lands in the State. 

Here is a broad field of operations, offered to the Northern 
farmer and capitalist, to make good and permanent homes and 
profitable investments for capital; nor is it to those alone this 
inducement is held out: the mechanic will find employment there 
in the erection of dwelling-houses, gin-houses, and sugar-houses, 
which have been destroyed during the war, or which fell into 
decay for lack of improvements and occupancy; wages now in 
Louisiana being, for mechanics, from $5 to $7 per day; whilst 
board is not as dear as it is in Washington. 

As to the laboring man, I would say to him, by all means go 
South and earn for yourself a farm, which you can do by in- 
dustry and perseverance in a few years, which you cannot do 
by manual labor in the North during your life-time. 

You work upon public works, say at two dollars a day, which 
is the maximum wages of a laborer. Upon an average you do 
not work during the year, perhaps, over twenty days in the 
month, whilst for board and lodging you pay twenty-five dollars 
per month, leaving you but fifteen dollars clear. But you do 
not clear this much, for you have to pay for washing, tobacco, 
and other little expenses, which you will find as a draw-back on 
your monthly wages; so, by the end of the year you have not 
enough left to buy yourself a decent suit of clothes; and the 
result of your year's labor is that your expenses have eaten the 
proceeds of your labor, leaving you, perhaps, a month or two in- 
debted to your boarding-house, and which, if you are an honest 
man, you will again have to go to work and earn money to pay 
your board bill, and this brings you to commence the same 
routine of labor and indebtedness ad infinitum; whilst a 
laboring man in the South, upon a farm, gets from twenty to 
twenty-five dollars per month, board, lodging, and washing; 
and as the climate is mild, he needs but very light clothing to 
keep him comfortable, and those of a coarse, strong material. 
He is now in the country; he has no need to go finely dressed 
7 



except on Sundays; he has not the thousand and one inducements 
in the country to spend his money which he has in the cities; 
and should he hire his time for a part of the crop, which is 
most frequently the case, he will have, in two years, the nucleus 
upon which he can start a little farm " on his own hook." 

Such are my views respecting the enterprise upon which your 
society has embarked; and as I see your object is not to be a 
benefit to the stockholders of the United States Mutual Pro- 
tection Company only, but a benefit and an everlasting blessing 
to the needy and industrious, who, when after a few years of 
trial in their new field of operation, will in the sincerity of 
their hearts call down innumerable blessings upon the com- 
pany, and all who aided and assisted them in this most laudable 
enterprise. 

I remain, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

D. E. HAYNES. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL 

OF 

C. S. G. CLIFTON, A. M., 

Formerly Sergeant Major 2d U. S. Cavalry, and a Returned Refugee. 



July, 1865. — Having received information that my two sons 
were on their way home from the war, I immediately embarked 
on board the steamer Elenor, at New Orleans, for Alexandria. 
In a very few days I arrived at Alexandria, late in the night, 
with my two trunks of clothing; with no small trouble ob- 
tained lodging for the remainder of the night. Early next 
morning, seeing an ox-team in town — the men with it were resi- 
dents of Bundle's creek, Calcasieu parish, about eighty-five 
miles distant — hoping to see or hear from my younger children, I 
succeeded in putting my trunks on board of their wagon, to 
accompany them out for the pine woods. About half way on 
the route, I heard my children had gone to some remote parts 
of Texas, and, at the solicitation of one of the men with us, I 
walked the entire distance to Bundle's creek settlement for the 
purpose of obtaining a school. The school could have been 
obtained, but a difficulty in the way of making payment pre- 
sented as an obstacle. I next learned my children had returned 
from Texas, were at Sugar Town, and my eldest daughter sick 
and at the point of death 

I now had to leave my clothing at Bundle's creek, and walk 
eighteen or twenty miles to Sugar Town, where I found my 
three children; the eldest girl, apparently on her death-bed, in 
an uncomfortable, ragged, and starving condition — no parent, 
no home — like poor, distressed little creatures expecting to be 
bound out at short notice. All we possessed was taken ; their 
house burnt up by \ Bloody Bob's" guerrillas or cavalry. 
Distressed in mind, I walked a long distance for medical aid; 
as for medicine we had none. In a very few days my daughter 
got a little better, and by a plea of mercy I succeeded in 



ioo 

getting the children removed to an old school house. From this 
on it appears that nothing but disaster upon disaster followed 
us. As for my clothing — and it was some time before my trunks 
could come to Sugar Town — I had to sell it at the following 
sacrifice : a fine broadcloth dress coat, that cost forty-five dol- 
lars in New Orleans, for a three-year old beef, worth ten or 
fifteen dollars ; dress waistcoat, worth eight dollars, for six 
hundred ears of corn ; and so on with every other article — for 
the children had to subsist, as a matter of course. 

Next, as soon as circumstances would permit, I walked, in 
warm weather, sixty-five miles to Alexandria, with my papers, 
hoping to receive from the United States Government some 
assistance, inasmuch as I had periled my life in defence of the 
same. The much-needed assistance I did not receive, although 
my children were ragged, starving, and without a home. I got 
a few quarter rations, say about fifteen pounds of pork and 
twelve pounds of hard bread. But then there were ten or 
twelve persons to have transportation with that ox-wagon ; so, 
to be brief, on my return, as the children's rations had to be 
cooked for support on the road, they only had about eighteen 
crackers and one pound of pork remaining. I merely mention 
this in order to show the trouble I had to support them. I 
now had to cast about in double-quick time to see what next 
could be done, as the times here were so very pressing, and self- 
interest was the order of the day ; in other words, there were 
people living around us who cared nothing for who sunk, if they 
only could swim. I recollected I had a little improvement at 
Six Mile creek that, peradventure, the cavalry had not burned. 
To that I proposed to the children we should go ; but, having 
no team, how to get there was the question, and none could be 
hired on any terms ; well, as we had not much of this world's 
ctore left, we, at different times, carried it there. Having made 
the second trip, and returned the distance of eight miles, on 
our return with the balance of the children's effects, we found 
some evil-disposed persons had thrown part of the roof off our 
dwelling-house, so as to effectually fill the bill — out of the fry- 
ing-pan into the fire. 

Our row was now hard indeed; however, T hired a man to help 
me fix it again. Next, having received a letter from an old Mis- 
sissippi neighbor, who now lived a long way down in Calcasieu 
parish, on Hickory Branch, stating they would be happy of my 
services as a teacher, and if I accepted of a school there he would 
come with an ox-team for us. With no small trouble we again 
removed to the old school house at Sugar Town, thinking it would 
shorten his distance some eight miles, the weather being very 
warm; we waited two weeks, on bm:d and water expenses, and still 

VS 152 



101 

he came not. By solicitation embarked in a small school at this 
place, at two dollars in money or two fifty in corn or produce per 
scholar per month. Some that signed failed to send; all had 
more or less excuse; eventually, however, one employer sent two 
scholars, and advanced ten bushels of corn for two months only, 
which I received and stored at his crib, thinking, perhaps, the 
children might now have bread at least for a short time; as for 
water, we could obtain that free of cost; but fate and fortune, 
it appears, had another difficulty in store for us. Hardly three 
weeks of the quarter session had gone into operation, when a 
return of some of our former neighbors was announced in the 
settlement. One of them was a school mistress. On a sudden 
I was notified to get another place, as this old lady was about 
to commence a large school, on very reduced terms, at the house 
my children occupied. Here was another obstacle now to com- 
bat with, and the signer of two for two months now wanted his 
corn back again, Well, for a brief conclusion, we now had to 
remove back again at a late season of the year to Six Mile, car- 
rying only a small portion, about perhaps one bushel of grain> 
with us, and no way of getting to mill, and in immediate want 
of every necessary article, flow we came out the sequel will 
show. We encamped that night, on Six Mile, at the remains of 
what had once been our house, for the boards were thrown off 
the roof, and next morning, after having partaken of some 
bread and water, returned to an unoccupied house at Sugar 
Town, where we could not obtain water; and the next sugges- 
tion was to move to Alexandria, in order to get more readily 
some employment for future support. I succeeded in getting 
provisions sufficient to carry us there, and a young man, going 
with an ox-team to embark in hauling freight, proffered to take 
us; we rolled on, nothing very material occurring, until we en- 
camped a short distance the other side of Ten Mile creek, 
and could have reached Alexandria in two more days' travel; 
unfortunately for us, the young man meeting his uncle and team, 
who had been there hauling freight and now loaded for home, 
prevailed on him to return; accordingly we were left on the 
road to travel the balance of the way as best we could. This 
was now another serious difficulty for myself and three unfor* 
tunate children to contend with. As our little supply of pro- 
visions was now fast diminishing, it required no small casting 
about to ascertain what next should be done in order to get a 
team; all the teams in this neighborhood were employed, and 
but few, if any, wagons passing; our row was now hard indeed — 
fifty miles from shore and no pole to toucli bottom — we were 
informed, however, that a team was expected to pass in course 
of one or two days at the furthest, but whether we could obtain 



102 

transportation aboard that or not was the now all-important 
question; well, Saturday passed, Sunday came, and is apparently 
passing without signs of the ox-team appearing. How we shall 
ever yet come out of present difficulty the balance of this journal 
must determine. Walked forty- three miles, going and returning, 
to try to hire a team to transport us; the children's provision 
rapidly diminishing; no less than fourteen applications for a 
team — they are all employed and none to be had on any terms — 
the promise of one, however, next Friday; my eldest daughter 
still very feeble, and more or less chill and fever, and my own 
health on the decline. What next is to follow time alone can 
tell. But we hope yet to get on, and find employ for future 
support. Arrived at Alexandria, received a few rations, and, 
through the influence of the provost marshal and very polite 
letter of recommendation to the quartermaster, obtained em- 
ploy with the United States Government as forage master. 
The monthly pay and rations being good, for which we are ex- 
tremely thankful, we hope the present dark cloud will pass away, 
and awaken to rise on brighter prospects for the future. 



THE END. 







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